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:::::::::The above content isn't what I reverted in after the BLP issue was raised; it was [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kellie-Jay_Keen-Minshull&diff=prev&oldid=1140594588 this text], and no, I don't see any possibility of harm to a BLP subject. The passage in question is an attributed account by a reputable organization that neither casts insinuations about the BLP subject nor was its relevance to the article questioned by any editor at the time it was discussed. The objection to the adjusted passage was purely to the sourcing, by an editor who was misapplying the requirements of BLP to material that is not {{tq|contentious material about a living person}}. [[User:Newimpartial|Newimpartial]] ([[User talk:Newimpartial|talk]]) 20:57, 21 February 2023 (UTC) |
:::::::::The above content isn't what I reverted in after the BLP issue was raised; it was [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kellie-Jay_Keen-Minshull&diff=prev&oldid=1140594588 this text], and no, I don't see any possibility of harm to a BLP subject. The passage in question is an attributed account by a reputable organization that neither casts insinuations about the BLP subject nor was its relevance to the article questioned by any editor at the time it was discussed. The objection to the adjusted passage was purely to the sourcing, by an editor who was misapplying the requirements of BLP to material that is not {{tq|contentious material about a living person}}. [[User:Newimpartial|Newimpartial]] ([[User talk:Newimpartial|talk]]) 20:57, 21 February 2023 (UTC) |
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::::::::::That content is in the diff you link. Your stunning inability to recognize that that passage is {{tq|biographical material that is entirely negative in tone and ... poorly sourced}} is grounds for a CIR/TENDENTIOUS block. [[User:JoelleJay|JoelleJay]] ([[User talk:JoelleJay|talk]]) 01:30, 22 February 2023 (UTC) |
::::::::::That content is in the diff you link. Your stunning inability to recognize that that passage is {{tq|biographical material that is entirely negative in tone and ... poorly sourced}} is grounds for a CIR/TENDENTIOUS block. [[User:JoelleJay|JoelleJay]] ([[User talk:JoelleJay|talk]]) 01:30, 22 February 2023 (UTC) |
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:::::::::::Sorry; I was attempting a two-edit diff and failed. I removed the objectionable bit once I understood the objection [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kellie-Jay_Keen-Minshull&diff=prev&oldid=1140614517 minutes later]. [User:Newimpartial|Newimpartial]] ([[User talk:Newimpartial|talk]]) 01:43, 22 February 2023 (UTC) |
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::::You are still [[WP:BLUD|bludgeoning]]. It may be wise to [[WP:DTS|drop the stick]]. It seems you are willfully ignoring the [[WP:PAG]] against sources you want to include. You want to add/retain the [[WP:PRIMARY|primary source]] accounts of an organization with no established reputation for fact-checking, accuracy, or editorial discretion, seemingly merely because they were there and happened to have blogged about it, and you presume that the anarchists who attended are inherently reliable and/or significant. A self-published primary account carries virtually zero weight, especially when it's not a recognized journalistic outlet. It doesn't matter much what they said: a self-published account saying "everybody had a grand time and ate strawberry ice cream" would carry equally negligible significance. [[WP:NPOV]] is based not on listing what every conceivable source has published, but in conservatively summarizing what ''reliable'' sources have said, in proportion to the ''prominence'' of these views. You've not provided any evidence that the AF source is reliable or has been given weight by secondary sources, nor that it is a [[WP:RSOPINION]], merely asserted (repeatedly!) that their content ''should'' be added. To give undue wight to unreliable/minority views is not what an encyclopedia is for. The only case I could possibly see using this source (with due caution) is a hypothetical article ''about'' the Bristol chapter of the Anarchist Federation to document non-contentious statements about itself (not other people or groups) per [[WP:SELFSOURCE]]. If you wish to write an original composition outside of Wikipedia, elevating unheard voices and primary sources that you think deserve more focus, then by all means pen an article for ''[[Anarchist Studies]]'' or your local newspaper, but Wikipedia is not the place to do that. [[User:Animalparty|--Animalparty!]] ([[User talk:Animalparty|talk]]) 04:45, 21 February 2023 (UTC) |
::::You are still [[WP:BLUD|bludgeoning]]. It may be wise to [[WP:DTS|drop the stick]]. It seems you are willfully ignoring the [[WP:PAG]] against sources you want to include. You want to add/retain the [[WP:PRIMARY|primary source]] accounts of an organization with no established reputation for fact-checking, accuracy, or editorial discretion, seemingly merely because they were there and happened to have blogged about it, and you presume that the anarchists who attended are inherently reliable and/or significant. A self-published primary account carries virtually zero weight, especially when it's not a recognized journalistic outlet. It doesn't matter much what they said: a self-published account saying "everybody had a grand time and ate strawberry ice cream" would carry equally negligible significance. [[WP:NPOV]] is based not on listing what every conceivable source has published, but in conservatively summarizing what ''reliable'' sources have said, in proportion to the ''prominence'' of these views. You've not provided any evidence that the AF source is reliable or has been given weight by secondary sources, nor that it is a [[WP:RSOPINION]], merely asserted (repeatedly!) that their content ''should'' be added. To give undue wight to unreliable/minority views is not what an encyclopedia is for. The only case I could possibly see using this source (with due caution) is a hypothetical article ''about'' the Bristol chapter of the Anarchist Federation to document non-contentious statements about itself (not other people or groups) per [[WP:SELFSOURCE]]. If you wish to write an original composition outside of Wikipedia, elevating unheard voices and primary sources that you think deserve more focus, then by all means pen an article for ''[[Anarchist Studies]]'' or your local newspaper, but Wikipedia is not the place to do that. [[User:Animalparty|--Animalparty!]] ([[User talk:Animalparty|talk]]) 04:45, 21 February 2023 (UTC) |
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:::::As I noted on the Talk page, I believe you are not paying attention to the relevant questions, which are (1) does the text referencing this Anarchist source contain contentious material about a living person? (it does not), and (2) are the statements of this particular anarchist group reputed to be good sources for the events they attend? (I believe they are). This ''isn't'' an RSOPINION, but it would have been sheerest optimism on my part to expect you to confine yourself to [[WP:PAG]] that are actually relevant to the case under discussion. [[User:Newimpartial|Newimpartial]] ([[User talk:Newimpartial|talk]]) 04:52, 21 February 2023 (UTC) |
:::::As I noted on the Talk page, I believe you are not paying attention to the relevant questions, which are (1) does the text referencing this Anarchist source contain contentious material about a living person? (it does not), and (2) are the statements of this particular anarchist group reputed to be good sources for the events they attend? (I believe they are). This ''isn't'' an RSOPINION, but it would have been sheerest optimism on my part to expect you to confine yourself to [[WP:PAG]] that are actually relevant to the case under discussion. [[User:Newimpartial|Newimpartial]] ([[User talk:Newimpartial|talk]]) 04:52, 21 February 2023 (UTC) |
Revision as of 01:44, 22 February 2023
Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context! | |||||||||
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RFC: People Make Games
Which of the following best describes People Make Games's videos in the area of video games?
- Option 1: Generally reliable
- Option 2: Additional considerations apply
- Option 3: Generally unreliable
- Option 4: Deprecate
Loki (talk) 20:16, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Survey (PMG)
- Option 1 People Make Games is reliable for video game journalism. They've been cited several times by multiple sources we consider reliable (including PC Gamer, Eurogamer, Polygon, Wired, and even the Washington Post somehow), and all their contributors are professional video game journalists. You can even see in the WaPo article (and other places) that they follow basic journalistic standards like asking their subjects for comment before publishing a story. Loki (talk) 20:16, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 They seem legit, given that other scrupulously reliable sources treat them as reliable. --Jayron32 12:53, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 for video-games journalism. They're a solid outlet, have broken at least one major story in that area, and are treated as reliable by other sources. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 20:32, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 and I'm glad that people aren't dismissing them automatically because they're on YouTube. casualdejekyll 12:38, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- So am I! Such a nice change of pace from normal, especially for those of us who remember how difficult it was to get consensus on Anthony Fantano's status as a "music critic." ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 18:29, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 as it appears to be a self-published source, but could be used with attribution as WP:EXPERTSPS. The authors are the publishers; there doesn't seem to be any fact checkers, editors, masthead, ethics policies, separation of news from opinion, etc. Just being cited alone doesn't make something an RS; this one is just not professional journalism, it's a well-respected blog, but it should be used only with attribution per EXPERTSPS. It's not like CNET or other professional publications. Levivich (talk) 18:37, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
- Not that I find too much fault with your logic, but it's a little funny that CNET is the example you give given, well, the discussion basically directly below this one :) ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 04:06, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
- I think it's important to note that while PMG is a small organization and doesn't have all those roles as separate people, it clearly does still have those roles. Its employees are all professional video games journalists and do clearly bring journalistic ethics with them in their role as PMG. So for instance, they do request comment from their subjects (implying some sort of ethics policy and also some sort of fact checking procedure), they do separate news from opinion (because they have no opinion section), they pretty clearly are treated as journalists by the industry (as shown by the many sources citing them, but also it's reasonably clear in the Nuclear Gandhi video that they are treated as journalists by games companies as well).
- An important thing to note here is that they're a journalism collective, somewhat like Bellingcat. They're not self-published because no individual journalist gets to publish their reporting alone: PMG as a whole organization is the publisher while the individual reporter is the author. If a story didn't pan out, it wouldn't get animated by their animator (and presumably the other members of the PMG team would also object to releasing it). Loki (talk) 17:32, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
- I disagree that having no opinion section means that they separate fact an opinion. That generally means the opposite, that fact and opinion share the same space in their content. This also means that use of People Make Games as a source should probably be attributed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:37, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'd add: Having those roles as separate people is kind of the whole point of having separation between reporters and editors. A group blog is a group blog, and sometimes acting ethically (e.g. requesting comment from their subjects) is not a substitute for not having an ethics policy. Being cited is not the same thing as "treated as journalists", and being treated as a journalist is not a substitute for being a journalist. Point-by-point, your response concedes that they do not meet any of the usual criteria for RS journalism (no separation of reporters and editors, no public written ethics policy, no separate fact checkers, no separate opinion section, no professional/credentialed journalists). Levivich (talk) 17:44, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 Washington Post uses them, so I'd support their reliability based on that. I've not seen anything to suggest otherwise. Oaktree b (talk) 17:04, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
- Not sure if I would use that as a reason to have it as option 1. If anyone it would be a reason to have Washington Post as option 2 or 3 in my view. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:38, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 for use in the area of videogames. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:36, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose Option 4 and this "deprecation" system. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:39, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
Strong option 1Option 2 Reliable for statements of fact in their area of expertise, however, extra caution should be advised for BLP material. Echoing others, I'm quite pleased at the open-mindedness of the comments. WP:RSP fundamentally exists to keep non-factual material out of our articles, but there's zero reason to be rigid about how we define what an RS can be. Thanks for offering this up for discussion, and I hope we see more of these kinds of outlets. DFlhb (talk) 23:06, 8 February 2023 (UTC); edited to add caution about BLP material; hadn't thought of that when writing my comment, and I agree that it's a valid concern 12:58, 17 February 2023 (UTC)- Option 2. WP:SPS with no indication of a published editorial policy or editorial review. This would make it Option 3, but acknowledgement in major outlets should be sufficient for an exception. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:35, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2. In agreement with Thebiguglyalien SolVerdict (talk) 01:07, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2, I think they're fine to use within their area of expertise (games and game culture) but I would advise against using them alone for BLP info without attribution. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:59, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2; Their citations in numerous reliable sources (there's a lot more if you search for them in Google News) demonstrate that they should be reliable for games and related topics (our own sources certainly seem to think so), but with it being unclear whether they're an expert self-published source or something closer to a traditional news organisation, I would echo the caution around BLP matters. twotwos (talk) 09:55, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Discussion (PMG)
- As we describe on its page, Nuclear Gandhi is an urban legend that Gandhi in the original Civilization was particularly likely to nuke people because of a bug. However, it's come out recently that in fact such a bug did not exist, nor was Gandhi even particularly likely to use nukes, and that this was purely an urban legend the entire time. On the page, we cite this dodgy Russian-language source (translation) for several important claims about it.
- However, the source we cite openly says it got this info from the People Make Games YouTube channel, in particular this video, which originally broke the story. And by all appearances this video is a very reliable source. People Make Games is staffed by professional video game journalists, including the one who broke this particular story, they've been cited by other sources we consider reliable (like PC Gamer, Eurogamer, Polygon, Wired, and even the Washington Post somehow) and the video itself contains multiple interviews with the developers themselves saying no such bug exists. In my opinion, PMG is about equal in reliability to Bellingcat for the specific area of video games, and for basically the same reasons.
- Yet not only do we not cite the video here, we don't cite People Make Games anywhere, about anything, as far as I can tell. Even for stories that they broke, we always cite someone else just repeating what they said. I believe this is primarily because they publish in video format, on YouTube, rather than in text, and we don't consider "YouTube" reliable. I think this is a silly bias against video content that we'd never allow if PMG was a news channel, and I'm aiming with this RfC to establish that just because PMG publishes its investigations on YouTube, that doesn't mean they're unreliable. Loki (talk) 20:16, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
- While I enjoy watching PMG, they are arguably a self-published source, and thus shouldn't be used as a directly cited source for non-self BLP claims, eg their allegations of abusive behaviour by indie developers. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:22, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
- Bellingcat is also arguably a self-published source, yet they're green on WP:RSP, and have absolutely been used for BLP claims before (e.g. they named several Russian intelligence officials involved in the Skripal poisoning). That's why I brought them up, to prove that we don't have a general policy against citizen journalism even in BLPs.
- To be clear, I believe the actual situation in both these cases is that PMG/Bellingcat is the publisher and the particular journalist breaking the story is the author, making neither of them WP:SPS. (This is the same as the situation with, say, the NYT; if we said that every employee of an organization is that organization no source would be reliable.) One of the key distinctions between self-published and independent sources is that independent sources have organizational editorial standards, which both PMG and Bellingcat clearly do. Loki (talk) 20:43, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
- Per Loki, what makes a self-published source self-published is the lack of a layer of editorial control between the writer and the publication of the information itself. People Make Games is not self-published; they appear to have an editorial staff and vet their stories as well as any other journalism organization. --Jayron32 12:56, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
- People Make Games is a YouTube channel run by 3 people who all collaborate together, far less than the number of journalists working on Bellingcat, so I don't possibly see how it could satisfy having
a layer of editorial control between the writer and the publication of the information itself
. Most major scoops by PMG have been covered by regular video game journalism websites, so this is really moot anyway. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:19, 18 January 2023 (UTC)- But the fact that they keep getting covered by regular video game journalism websites shows that other video game journalists consider them reliable, even despite their small size. And just because other sources frequently cover their work doesn't mean that we don't need to mark them reliable. So for instance, they did an interview with the creators of Blaseball that we ought to be able to quote from, even though to my knowledge it hasn't been cited elsewhere. Loki (talk) 02:51, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
- People Make Games is a YouTube channel run by 3 people who all collaborate together, far less than the number of journalists working on Bellingcat, so I don't possibly see how it could satisfy having
- Per Loki, what makes a self-published source self-published is the lack of a layer of editorial control between the writer and the publication of the information itself. People Make Games is not self-published; they appear to have an editorial staff and vet their stories as well as any other journalism organization. --Jayron32 12:56, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
- While I enjoy watching PMG, they are arguably a self-published source, and thus shouldn't be used as a directly cited source for non-self BLP claims, eg their allegations of abusive behaviour by indie developers. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:22, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
- Question Do they have a corrections policy? Do the follow it? Adoring nanny (talk) 21:08, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
- They don't have a website outside of YouTube and Patreon, so, as far as I can tell, not a published one. However, they have responded to criticism of their work before at length. Loki (talk) 22:42, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
- Comment Not sure why we need this source when Sid Meier himself has said this is a myth.
But it's not the countless callbacks and references that make the nuclear Gandhi story so funny to me. It's the fact that none of it is true. The overflow error never happened at all.
(Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games p. 262) Although it did exist as an Easter Egg in Civ V. Geogene (talk) 18:14, 18 January 2023 (UTC)- It's not just Nuclear Gandhi I'm talking about here, they've broken other scoops in the past as well. Loki (talk) 02:46, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
- I don’t know this outlet well enough to opine on general reliability, but I would oppose depreciation. That is (and should be) saved for extremely rare cases. Blueboar (talk) 21:42, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
- Comment – I've contacted Chris Bratt of People Makes Games to inquire about editorial policies. DecafPotato (talk) 01:38, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
More on the reliability of BtVA
The Anime and Manga Wikiproject does not consider Behind the Voice Actors to be a reliable source. Can the perennial sources list stop calling it reliable now? Eldomtom2 (talk) 15:20, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
- Do you have a link to the discussion where the reliability was discussed? The most recent such discussion here, From March, 2022 concluded that it was reliable. While such discussions don't have to happen here; they need to happen somewhere and if there is a new consensus, we all need to see what discussion came to a new consensus. --Jayron32 15:48, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
- Near as I can tell, the discussion is in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anime and manga/Online reliable sources/Archive 1 and consists of two users. It's from more then a decade ago and as mentioned has only two participants, including the person who asked if it's a RS. --(loopback) ping/whereis 16:10, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
- Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS and also per WP:TIMETRAVELISN'TPOSSIBLEASFARASWEKNOW, an older discussion in a less-broadly-attended corner of Wikipedia cannot override an existing consensus which was established later. If Eldomtom2 wants to start a new discussion over the reliability of the website in question, they can feel free to do so, but unless and until someone does that, it appears the March 2022 discussion is the prevailing one.--Jayron32 16:40, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
- The second one is a red link. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:40, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
- It's a blue link if you're browsing from before 2015. After The Fracture happened and Dr. Nixon broke the timeline with her first trip we deleted it. When there's a timeline collision we sometimes get people from 2008 linking to it when we try to warn them about the snakes. --(loopback) ping/whereis 21:26, 2 February 2037 (UTC)
- It won't be if you go back in time and fix it. --Jayron32 13:31, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
- I have made multiple attempts at starting discussions here and they have failed to receive attention.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 21:47, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that there was a well attended RfC for it here less then a year ago. It seems the community here largely doesn't feel like it needs to be reopened at this time. Is there something that's changed about the source in the last year, or do you just disagree with the conclusion? Because the former may catch more discussion but the latter is likely to elicit crickets if editors don't feel anything is substantially different to when we did this before. --(loopback) ping/whereis 06:42, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
- I disagree with the conclusion. It was waved through with little investigation.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 22:34, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, are we looking at the same RfC? I would like to draw your attention specifically to Compassionate727's fairly exhaustive dive into their structure and editorial methods. That is exactly the the type of examination we expect around here, and it did seem to hold quite a bit of weight with participants. If you were talking about a different RfC that's understandable, but if you meant the March 2022 one and think there was 'little investigation' then I don't think you are quite on the level. --(loopback) ping/whereis 06:02, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
- I disagree with the conclusion. It was waved through with little investigation.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 22:34, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that there was a well attended RfC for it here less then a year ago. It seems the community here largely doesn't feel like it needs to be reopened at this time. Is there something that's changed about the source in the last year, or do you just disagree with the conclusion? Because the former may catch more discussion but the latter is likely to elicit crickets if editors don't feel anything is substantially different to when we did this before. --(loopback) ping/whereis 06:42, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
- The second one is a red link. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:40, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
- Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS and also per WP:TIMETRAVELISN'TPOSSIBLEASFARASWEKNOW, an older discussion in a less-broadly-attended corner of Wikipedia cannot override an existing consensus which was established later. If Eldomtom2 wants to start a new discussion over the reliability of the website in question, they can feel free to do so, but unless and until someone does that, it appears the March 2022 discussion is the prevailing one.--Jayron32 16:40, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
- Near as I can tell, the discussion is in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anime and manga/Online reliable sources/Archive 1 and consists of two users. It's from more then a decade ago and as mentioned has only two participants, including the person who asked if it's a RS. --(loopback) ping/whereis 16:10, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
- Just want to point out that WP Anime does consider Behind the Voice Actors to be reliable in most circumstances. You would see this if you actually read the entry at WP:ANIME/ORS#Situational. Link20XX (talk) 00:30, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- It actually says "Roles and lists that are not check-marked (covered by a screenshot), despite being listed under that actor, cannot be used", which means that BtVA is unreliable, since the only thing it is considered reliable for is providing screenshots of the primary source that is a show's credits.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 11:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
StatMuse
StatMuse is the eponymous interactive AI (Chatbot) of the StatMuse company (basically a ChatGPT with a sports focus). Is its use on articles such as List of National Football League players with multiple 1,000-yard receiving seasons appropriate? It appears that someone asked the AI "Which Wide Receiver Has The Most 1000 Yard Receiving Seasons" and we're now using that answer as the only source on the article. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:01, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not a WP:RS... Probably needs to be formally deprecated or blacklisted. —DIYeditor (talk) 06:33, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- "lmao" is all I'll say about that last sentence. The things we see! DFlhb (talk) 19:11, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- I would also note that the details in the table doesn't even match the reference. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:39, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Which may be because the source is dynamically generated and therefore can be expected to keep changing. Another reason to avoid these sites. DFlhb (talk) 21:02, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Definitely, a nonstable source can not be verified. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:15, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Is there any copyright concern over republishing tables generated by StatMuse, or would they be to generic as they are just statistics? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:17, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Which may be because the source is dynamically generated and therefore can be expected to keep changing. Another reason to avoid these sites. DFlhb (talk) 21:02, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
RfC
Which of the following best describes the StatMuse chatbot?
- Option 1: Generally reliable
- Option 2: Additional considerations apply
- Option 3: Generally unreliable
- Option 4: Deprecate
Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:06, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not sure RFCs on individual chatbots are the right approach here. WP:LLM (a draft) declares them all unreliable in one fell swoop, which seems more appropriate, since I doubt there are any specifics that would make one chatbot more reliable than another. DFlhb (talk) 21:11, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm seeing use on well over 500 pages, to me that means there really does have to be a formal centralized discussion. If it was under 100 I would do it myself but I'm just not comfortable being *that* bold. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:15, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- A search "only" yielded 211 pages for me, hence my reply. But yes, in that case, Deprecate or at the least GUNREL. DFlhb (talk) 21:19, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Did you add in the variants like "stat muse"? Search on wiki is not my strong suit. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:22, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- I searched
insource:"url=https://www.statmuse.com"
so it only picks up the URL parameter of {{cite web}}. Otherwise you get articles like Terry Crews that contain the words "stat" and "muse" but no citation to that site. - Can also do that in PetScan, "Other Sources" tab, "Search query" field, and it gives a nice list. DFlhb (talk) 21:30, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Ok so the cleanest search I can find is insource:"www.statmuse.com" which returns two eighty something without any apparent errors. The more specific search misses lazy cites like the one at Tom Van Arsdale. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:39, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- I searched
- Did you add in the variants like "stat muse"? Search on wiki is not my strong suit. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:22, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- A search "only" yielded 211 pages for me, hence my reply. But yes, in that case, Deprecate or at the least GUNREL. DFlhb (talk) 21:19, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm seeing use on well over 500 pages, to me that means there really does have to be a formal centralized discussion. If it was under 100 I would do it myself but I'm just not comfortable being *that* bold. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:15, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- If it's necessary to have the RFC and not just declare all such sources unusable for referencing purposes, then Deprecate. The other problem these seem to raise is of OR, take this for example. It's currently in use and uses a complex set of criteria, those criteria are being set by the editor. No other sources is publishing the specific details, it brings to mind a discussion above were an editor has written code to prove a particular algorithm. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:53, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think the OR question is inherent in the category of incredibly niche lists and the Chatbots just allow it to be smoother, see List of college football coaches with 150 NCAA Division I FCS wins for example. If we check the edit history we find that it was not made because there was coverage of the topic in WP:RS or anything else which would indicate notability but because they "Decided to create a list I've wanted to add for a couple of years." and worked backwards from there... Thats a problem whether you piece it together from databases yourself or use a chatbot to piece it together. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:02, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- At least on those cases someone has actually published the statistics, I wouldn't count them towards notability though. In this case the editor is creating the reference to meet the content they want to add, that's extremely problematic. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:07, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah but that "someone" is primarily a defunct SPS now available only in archive form, example [1]. Almost everything down this hole is problematic, chatbots are just the new lowest level of hell. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:20, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- At least on those cases someone has actually published the statistics, I wouldn't count them towards notability though. In this case the editor is creating the reference to meet the content they want to add, that's extremely problematic. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:07, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- Those chatbot prompts are particularly deadly. AI chatbots give you whatever answer you're looking for. I just asked ChatGPT which US President had a chihuahua. It said "none". I told it: "I thought Eisenhower had one." And it said:
You are correct! President Dwight D. Eisenhower did have a Chihuahua named Heidi. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
But all Eisenhower had was a Weimaraner. Chatbots are like a child being asked leading questions by a policeman. - Any super-specific question, like the one you link, is extremely like to lead to confabulation. How long until one of these bots claims it was abused by Satanists? DFlhb (talk) 22:44, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think the OR question is inherent in the category of incredibly niche lists and the Chatbots just allow it to be smoother, see List of college football coaches with 150 NCAA Division I FCS wins for example. If we check the edit history we find that it was not made because there was coverage of the topic in WP:RS or anything else which would indicate notability but because they "Decided to create a list I've wanted to add for a couple of years." and worked backwards from there... Thats a problem whether you piece it together from databases yourself or use a chatbot to piece it together. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:02, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
- It's clear to me that this discussion is based on my actions. I did not start the article, but I noticed the page was inaccurate and I figured that StatMuse was better than no source. I'm not going to argue one way or another for StatMuse but I do have a couple of questions. What makes this site a "chatbot"? It's a self-proclaimed artificial intelligence company, but it doesn't communicate with you. It fetches information from a sports database based on queries that you enter. Also, why was this listed Media, the arts, and architecture instead of Society, sports, and culture? I think it's important that the sports group be involved in the discussion. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:22, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- The problem is the "artificial intelligence" part, many instances of which have been shown to make up facts as a way to answer questions. If this was just a way of cross referencing details in a database it wouldn't be so probelmatic. StatMuse are obviously not going to say exactly how their chatbot works, so caution is required. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 15:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- I see what you're getting at regarding the AI part. Though I will say again, I don't believe this fits the definition of a chatbot. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:43, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- It interprets your language via AI, builds what it's believes you mean into a database search, and returns I'm the results back via AI into language. It's a chatbot. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:51, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- I could understand not classifying StatMuse as a reliable source, but I'm hung up on the phrasing of a chatbot here. I view it as a searchable database whereas I guess I look at a chatbot as something that's trying to carry on a conversation. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:06, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- A chatbot is defined by it's interaction with users using natural language, which is what is happening here. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:32, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- I could understand not classifying StatMuse as a reliable source, but I'm hung up on the phrasing of a chatbot here. I view it as a searchable database whereas I guess I look at a chatbot as something that's trying to carry on a conversation. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:06, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- There's also the question of OR / undue. If no-one else has published these statistics before you ask the question then you are creating a reference to support the article text, and that sounds extremely problematic. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:53, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- I did have concerns about OR when using StatMuse as a reference, but I believed that it was better than nothing (again, I didn't create the article, just was trying to improve it). I can absolutely understand how this could be problematic. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:06, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- It's is definitely better to have nothing that to have text supported by an unreliable source. Instead of adding OR, the text should be removed if it can't be supported by a previously published reliable source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:30, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- You're right, and I'm going to go ahead and blame the lingering brain fog I have from COVID. I should have nominated that article for deletion when I stumbled upon it instead of trying to salvage it. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:56, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- There's nothing negative about trying to save an article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:02, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- You're right, and I'm going to go ahead and blame the lingering brain fog I have from COVID. I should have nominated that article for deletion when I stumbled upon it instead of trying to salvage it. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:56, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- It's is definitely better to have nothing that to have text supported by an unreliable source. Instead of adding OR, the text should be removed if it can't be supported by a previously published reliable source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:30, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- I did have concerns about OR when using StatMuse as a reference, but I believed that it was better than nothing (again, I didn't create the article, just was trying to improve it). I can absolutely understand how this could be problematic. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:06, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- It interprets your language via AI, builds what it's believes you mean into a database search, and returns I'm the results back via AI into language. It's a chatbot. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:51, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- I see what you're getting at regarding the AI part. Though I will say again, I don't believe this fits the definition of a chatbot. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:43, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- You ask it a question in natural language (in this example "which player has the most 1000 yard receiving seasons"), it provides an answer in natural language (in this case "Jerry Rice played the most seasons with 1,000+ receiving yards, with 14 seasons."). How is that not communicating with you? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:11, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Chatbot mentions communication back and forth, but StatMuse does not converse with you. It fetches information based on a query, much like a search engine does. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:43, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- It replies "Jerry Rice played the most seasons with 1,000+ receiving yards, with 14 seasons." in response to your question (the very definition of back and forth) isn't communication what is it? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:59, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- I guess I'm hung up on the conversational aspect of it. For the query (found here) it doesn't just list Jerry Rice, as your comment might imply. It brings up a list and creates a table out of them. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:06, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- You ask it a question in natural language, it answers in natural language (in addition to other things as you said), you and the chatbot just had a conversation. It doesn't have to be lengthy to be a conversation, not all chatbots are set up like that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:11, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think this is one I'll need to mull over and let bounce around in my head for a bit. On the one hand, it's an ask and answer back and forth (in a way via searching). On the other hand, it adds a lot of "extras" which is likely why I'm having a tough time looking at is as a chatbot. Never the less, I do understand why you're referring to is as such after this back and forth and my view of what is and isn't a chatbot may change after giving some more thought. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:26, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Its not a very advanced one, its much more 2017 than 2023 but thats what it is. Note that is also meant to be used with voice not text, one of the key features is that it talks to you in the voice of various NFL player. In the intended use case it is much more conversational. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Wow, I wasn't aware of that feature. Guess I may have been using it in a way that's not the norm. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:46, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Based on your replies, it seems that StatMuse ought to be compared to Google’s Answer Box than to ChatGPT. The Google Answer Box takes info from one of the search results, and displays it in natural language (and is sometimes inaccurate, taken from an inaccurate site).
- The key question, therefore, is: is StatMuse’s database accurate? What’s their WP:UBO? DFlhb (talk) 21:54, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Its not a very advanced one, its much more 2017 than 2023 but thats what it is. Note that is also meant to be used with voice not text, one of the key features is that it talks to you in the voice of various NFL player. In the intended use case it is much more conversational. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- I guess I'm hung up on the conversational aspect of it. For the query (found here) it doesn't just list Jerry Rice, as your comment might imply. It brings up a list and creates a table out of them. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:06, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- It replies "Jerry Rice played the most seasons with 1,000+ receiving yards, with 14 seasons." in response to your question (the very definition of back and forth) isn't communication what is it? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:59, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Chatbot mentions communication back and forth, but StatMuse does not converse with you. It fetches information based on a query, much like a search engine does. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:43, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- The problem is the "artificial intelligence" part, many instances of which have been shown to make up facts as a way to answer questions. If this was just a way of cross referencing details in a database it wouldn't be so probelmatic. StatMuse are obviously not going to say exactly how their chatbot works, so caution is required. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 15:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2: Additional considerations apply Treat them as a WP:PRIMARYSOURCE. If a stat was important enough, then it generally should have been mentioned by WP:SECONDARYSOURCEs. We don't want to provide WP:UNDUE weight to random stats.—Bagumba (talk) 15:25, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 4: Deprecate It's not transparent where they get their information from. Human-made sources have at least the advantage that humans normally shy away from publishing things that others might see as ridiculous. Rsk6400 (talk) 17:43, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Here it states they get information from a company named SportRadar. On the company's website it shows various partners, including several major sports leagues (such as NBA, NHL, MLB). Hey man im josh (talk) 17:50, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Just FYI Sportradar is primarily a service provider to the gambling industry, they're not generally what we would consider a WP:RS. This makes the question of where the data actually comes from murkier, not clearer. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:03, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that it's murky since we aren't able to audit the information ourselves. I do think we can infer that the information provided by Sportradar is likely accurate given its use in the gambling industry (FanDuel & DraftKings). Though I understand that inference may not be enough to establish reliability. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:15, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Just FYI Sportradar is primarily a service provider to the gambling industry, they're not generally what we would consider a WP:RS. This makes the question of where the data actually comes from murkier, not clearer. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:03, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Here it states they get information from a company named SportRadar. On the company's website it shows various partners, including several major sports leagues (such as NBA, NHL, MLB). Hey man im josh (talk) 17:50, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- 4: Deprecate. For the obvious reasons of reliability, accuracy, and OR. JoelleJay (talk) 20:02, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Comment: Given that the website is primarily based around sports statistics, I still believe this should be listed at Society, sports, and culture instead of Media, the arts, and architecture. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:59, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
Seymour Hersh
- Hersh, Seymour (February 8, 2023). "How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline". Substack. Retrieved February 8, 2023.
- Can this source be linked in a list of works at Seymour Hersh?
- Can this source be cited with attribution at Seymour Hersh?
- Can this source be cited with attribution at 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage?
Thanks, Levivich (talk) 20:16, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think the answer to #1 is "yes", because it's not being "used as a source" (WP:SPS), it's a significant work by the subject of the article, and including a link to it is helpful to the reader. We're not using it to source any content in the body of any article, under #1. For #2 and #3, I'm not as sure, I think it comes down to WP:ABOUTSELF #3, which is "it does not involve claims about third parties", and the source does involve claims about third parties (governments of US and Norway), and we wouldn't use the source in either article as a source about Hersh, we'd be using it as a source about the sabotage and who Hersh alleges is responsible. So for that reason I lean 'no'. On other hand, since we're already including this content in both articles sourced to other reliable sources (The Times, Reuters), it seems like what's the harm of including a citation to the original piece for the convenience of our reader? So for that reason, I lean 'yes'. Levivich (talk) 20:23, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- My gut reaction is quite similar to yours -- sure to #1, and okay to #2, given that the information already exists elsewhere. I would personally say no to #3, basically because I would see that as implicitly giving the work Wikipedia's imprimatur of reliability, and I don't think that's warranted. As ever, reasonable minds can differ. Happy Friday. Dumuzid (talk) 20:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- I would be on board with that Solomonic decision. Levivich (talk) 20:36, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Same, unless we are revaluating substack and independent publishing as a whole, Hersh decided to publish without editorial oversight and by our policies is of limited use. It's also investigative journalism, which is usually Primary anyway. That said, we should strive to provide readers with Primary materials that aid their own reading and understanding of the subject. Slywriter (talk) 20:59, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- We routinely source, say, Donald Trump's views to his Twitter account in his article. How's that different from sourcing Hersh's opinions to his blog? — kashmīrī TALK 21:39, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Do we? Take another look at Donald Trump... There is only one use of a twitter account as a source and it isn't Trump's. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:43, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- In the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage article there is literally a paragraph section about a tweet, with the tweet used as a citation, that goes on longer than the section about Hersh. Spudst3r (talk) 01:30, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- They didn't say 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage, they said Donald Trump. There is no reason for that page to be using tweets either, they're entirely redundant. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:22, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- In the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage article there is literally a paragraph section about a tweet, with the tweet used as a citation, that goes on longer than the section about Hersh. Spudst3r (talk) 01:30, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Do we? Take another look at Donald Trump... There is only one use of a twitter account as a source and it isn't Trump's. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:43, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- We routinely source, say, Donald Trump's views to his Twitter account in his article. How's that different from sourcing Hersh's opinions to his blog? — kashmīrī TALK 21:39, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- My gut reaction is quite similar to yours -- sure to #1, and okay to #2, given that the information already exists elsewhere. I would personally say no to #3, basically because I would see that as implicitly giving the work Wikipedia's imprimatur of reliability, and I don't think that's warranted. As ever, reasonable minds can differ. Happy Friday. Dumuzid (talk) 20:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes to all three.
- Hersh is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who broke multiple truthful stories using anonymous sources, including the May Lai Massacre, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the secret bombings of Cambodia. All of this reporting came with smears against his reputation and gaslighting that he was lying that was latter proved wrong, irrefutably. Meanwhile, later stories like his coverage of the Bin Laden story and Syria are more disputed and the historical fact is not so clear on his side.
- With this substack story both the Russian and Chinese foreign ministries are relying on it to demand that the U.S. provide explanations. If a substack successfully triggers a diplomatic incident like that, and receives news coverage the way this story has, then it's worthy for inclusion for the reader. Omitting it is weird -- like an attempt to censor the reader from the core sources driving the valid encyclopedic entry. Spudst3r (talk) 21:20, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Levivich: I started drafting a similar question here, too. You were first :)
- As a background, Hersh is a Pulitzer-winning American investigative journalist who first uncovered the My Lai massacre, the Abu Ghraib torture, and a few other scandals involving the US administration. He mostly published in The New York Times. Recently, he switched to self-publishing for reasons explained by him here[2] and so, his newest piece of investigative journalism appeared on a personal publishing platform.
- In my view, this situation is governed by WP:SPS:
Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications
. We are therefore free to consider this a reliable source within the scope of its author's expertise. Also, denials/criticism of Hersh's investigations coming from the US administration, even if reported by big titles, should in my view not influence our decision. So:- Yes to #1
- Yes to #2 if the actual authorship is not in doubt
- Yes to #3 for reasons explained above (WP:SPS).
- (That said, I don't think it was wise to publish this investigation now, before the war is over.)
- — kashmīrī TALK 21:24, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that this situation is governed by SPS, however SPS seems to explicitly forbid the use of this source... It can only be used as long as "it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;" which this one does, its only claims about events not directly related to the source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:27, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- You're confusing the sections. The quote you refer to is under "Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves" and with an important note: they can be used
without the self-published source requirement that they are published experts in the field
. This policy mostly allows us to source a company's financials to their investors report, or someone's place of birth to their personal blog. This does not refer to expert views published by experts themselves. — kashmīrī TALK 21:34, 10 February 2023 (UTC)- What part of "Questionable sources are those that have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views widely considered by other sources to be promotional, extremist, or relying heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor, or personal opinion." doesn't fit Hersh's blog? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:41, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Please show us evidence that any of the three applies to that particular piece of journalism. — kashmīrī TALK 21:45, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Hersh has a poor reputation for checking the facts, as the WP:RS which covered this story noted (hence the "disgraced" in "disgraced investigative journalist"). By everyone's agreement there is no meaningful editorial oversight here, I don't believe that's disputed. According to WP:RS the entire article is based on a single anonymous source whose claims WP:RS have not been able to substantiate, thereby "relying heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor, or personal opinion." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:50, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- This is WP:EXPERTSPS v. non-expert WP:SPS. I'm not sure that Hersh is an expert within the meaning of EXPERTSPS. What is he an expert in, and what are his credentials? I wouldn't call Woodward and Bernstein experts, either, but maybe I'm wrong. Are investigative journalists experts? Levivich (talk) 21:46, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Woodward and Bernstein would be experts on journalistic practices, and Woodward also on the larger business side of that since he's been an editor at a paper-of-record for some time. Long careers at the top of their field do imho give them acknowledged expertise in that field. But neither would be experts in the subjects they covered during that career. --(loopback) ping/whereis 09:07, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Please show us evidence that any of the three applies to that particular piece of journalism. — kashmīrī TALK 21:45, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Kashmiri:, you wrote
"Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves"
but that's exactly what this is about. This is about whether or not use Hersh's blog post at Substack as source for his unverified, unsubstantiated, uncorroborated allegations within the wiki article. Notice: This topic's question states:"Hersh, Seymour, "How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline". Substack. Can this source [Substack] be cited with attribution at 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage?"
. And the answer is No. Substack is a social media blog so should not be used as a source per WP:SPS. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 23:53, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- What part of "Questionable sources are those that have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views widely considered by other sources to be promotional, extremist, or relying heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor, or personal opinion." doesn't fit Hersh's blog? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:41, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- You're confusing the sections. The quote you refer to is under "Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves" and with an important note: they can be used
He mostly published in The New York Times.
He left the NYT in the late 70s or early 80s. His Abu Ghraib reporting was published in The New Yorker, not the NYT. The concern here is that his more recent work has come under increased criticism over its sourcing, with the New Yorker eventually declining to publish him anymore given concerns about it. Clearly, if he had published this in the NYT or the New Yorker, it could absolutely be included as a source. We need to assess, though, how to interpret the fact that he DIDN'T publish this in an RS, and what that means about the content. As such, I'm inclined to agree with the discussion above and say yes to 1 and 2, no to 3. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 21:38, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that this situation is governed by SPS, however SPS seems to explicitly forbid the use of this source... It can only be used as long as "it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;" which this one does, its only claims about events not directly related to the source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:27, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Since the White House responded and the response was noted in reliable sources, a sentence or two is acceptable. Linking to the (unreliable) source is not, since it lends too much credibility to it--as does the whole "investigative journalist" appellation. That was true decades ago. Drmies (talk) 21:42, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes to 1 and 2, no to 3, Hersh should be attributed for any controversial statement and his self-published journalism is still self-published. Andre🚐 21:48, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Yes to 1, no to 2 and 3: A "source with direct knowledge of the operational planning" is insufficient attribution for a credible SPS, even from a reputable journalist. The anonymous source is quoted over a dozen times, but not once is their position, authority, or reason for requesting anonymity characterized. That doesn't meet current standards for the use of anonymous sources, which I'm sure Hersch understands. Δπ (talk) 22:03, 10 February 2023 (UTC)Sock strike Levivich (talk) 17:19, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- To clarify, RS Reuters calls his piece a "blog post." [3] Hersh posted his blog post in a social media blog named Substack. WP:SPS says
"social media postings are largely not acceptable, as sources
. Also Substack is WP:NOTRS, WP:QS whereby Substack does not fact check their blogger’s works and has no editorial oversight.
- For #1, Yes under certain conditions. RS Reuters calls his piece a "blog post." Therefore, under the condition that it's under the correct Subheading "Blog Post on Social Media Blog" I'd be a yes & agree with Levivich and Dumuzid on #1; otherwise, I'd be a no.
- For #2, No due to WP:UNDUE, WP:AGEMATTERS, WP:NOTWEBHOST and possibly WP:LIVING & WP:NOTSCANDAL According to RS, the "subject matter" in Hersh's blog post includes unsubstantiated allegations against a living person and others [4]. And because RS report that Hersh's subject matter about the living person and others include details that media outlets have not verified and have not corroborated [5] [6], I am concerned we'd run into WP:LIVING issues.
- For #3, No due to WP:NOTRS, WP:QS, WP:UNDUE, WP:SPS, WP:SOAPBOX, WP:FRINGE, WP:AGEMATTERS and possibly WP:LIVING & WP:NOTSCANDAL, and for reasons Levivich & Dumuzid stated. In fact, because of the reason I just stated, I feel the current paragraph on this is too lengthy & should reduced to just a few sentences at most, and possibly removed completelty.
- Thanks for posting this Levivich! :) Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 22:41, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes to 1, 2 and 3: The way this has blown up: obviously, Huldra (talk) 23:58, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Comment: here is a balanced WP:SCMP article covering Hersch's article and the official U.S. response. Δπ (talk) 00:13, 11 February 2023 (UTC)- Doesn't seem so reliable to me: "The September explosions were blamed by Western countries on Russia", "Western fingers have continued to point at Russia" – these claims are not corroborated even by our Wikipedia article (because the statements are a fiction). "The decision was made in secret by US President Joe Biden to cut off Moscow’s ability to earn billions of dollars from natural gas sales to Europe" is another fiction – Hersh, just like Western governments, stresses energy dependence, not money. It's perhaps an unbiased article, but it's so poorly written that I wouldn't use it. — kashmīrī TALK 00:21, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Note that the story is an Agence France-Presse wire, are you saying that the AFP is publishing poorly written fiction? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:24, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Learn the difference between an existential and a universal quantifier. — kashmīrī TALK 09:46, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Learn how to identify a reliable source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:25, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Learn the difference between an existential and a universal quantifier. — kashmīrī TALK 09:46, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- It's not fiction that the West largely blamed Russia; Poland and Ukraine all but officially blamed Russia, while US officials and other officials from EU countries were mostly just saying that it seemed very likely that Russia was to blame. Regarding
these claims are not corroborated even by our Wikipedia article
-- there's a reason AFP journalists are AFP journalists and not Wikipedia editors. Endwise (talk) 04:12, 11 February 2023 (UTC)- @Endwise:, You're spot on! the AFP article is not fiction. See my comment below to Kashmiri where I give RS links showing wiki's RS concurred with the AFP article. Best wishes~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 04:35, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Kashmiri:, wiki's RS do say 'the West blamed Russia' and that the 'West pointed fingers at Russia.' Here,
"Russia shrugged off Western accusations of its complicity in mysterious explosions at the Nord Stream pipelines in Europe this week”
[7], here"World leaders quickly blamed Russia for explosions along the Nord Stream undersea natural gas pipelines."
[8], here"Western governments have stopped short of pointing the finger directly at Russia"
[9], here"Western officials were quick to stress on Tuesday that the explosions appeared to have affected Russian-owned assets.
[10]. Plenty more RSes say the same thing. And, those quotes from RS should be included in the wiki article & I've often wondered why they're not. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 04:32, 11 February 2023 (UTC)- We do not use headlines as sources.
- US News beyond the headline:
Though Western officials have so far withheld blaming Russia directly, some have hinted at complicity from Moscow
– it says that the West did not blame Russia. - Elsewhere, no report of any named Western government official publicly blaming Russia. There were a few (very few) hints, insinuations, anonymous (!) "officials" sharing a "widespread belief" (in the WaPo piece; the anonymity of their sources is even more annoying than with Hersh's), but there was nothing official. Nothing especially coming from the "collective West" as the AFP piece suggests. The Guardian piece sums it up best:
[T]he idea that Moscow would dare to step up by targeting western undersea pipelines and cables in the Baltic Sea and elsewhere remains hard to believe
. — kashmīrī TALK 09:28, 11 February 2023 (UTC)- If you would like to challenge the reliability of the AFP all you have to do is open a new discussion under this one. You can't dispute that in this conversation as we have a clear consensus on their reliability, you would need to change that consensus. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:30, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm questioning the factual accuracy of this particular news piece, and you want me to challenge the reliability of the entire AFP? Idiotic manipulation at its best. — kashmīrī TALK 12:07, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Then open a discussion for the factual accuracy of this particular AFP piece... See if other people agree with you. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:37, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm questioning the factual accuracy of this particular news piece, and you want me to challenge the reliability of the entire AFP? Idiotic manipulation at its best. — kashmīrī TALK 12:07, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- If you would like to challenge the reliability of the AFP all you have to do is open a new discussion under this one. You can't dispute that in this conversation as we have a clear consensus on their reliability, you would need to change that consensus. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:30, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Note that the story is an Agence France-Presse wire, are you saying that the AFP is publishing poorly written fiction? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:24, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes to all three. It seems like there is some disagreement about the third question, but I think there shouldn't be any considering that it has been covered by plenty of reputable sources Der Spiegel, RFI, South China Morning Post, La Vanguardia. Hersh satisfies the WP:SPS criteria as his work has been published by multiple sources. Alaexis¿question? 21:23, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Alaexis: The third question is whether or not the blog post published on a social media blog should be used as the source cited in the article about Nord Stream. So, since the content has been "covered by plenty of reputable sources" why not just use those reputable sources, as opposed to using the blog? Especially since blogs are not RS. Best regards ~
- BetsyRMadison (talk) 21:43, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- @BetsyRMadison Substack is NOT social media, please. Read this: Substack. — kashmīrī TALK 12:08, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Kashmiri: Yes, Substack IS a social media blog where anyone can write whatever they want with no editorial oversight and with no fact-checking control. Substack does not ensure the veracity of what any of their bloggers write and does not monitor its own content. That means Substack bloggers can post any false content, conspiracy theories, or propaganda they choose to post. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Kashmiri may be correct that “social media” may not be technically the correct term for Substack, but BettyRMadison is certainly correct in describing it as a blogging platform. At any rate there is no doubt that a Substack post falls within the SPS category in the same way as a Wordpress or Facebook post or a newsletter in the old-fashioned sense does. There is no editorial oversight of any kind. BobFromBrockley (talk) 03:15, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Kashmiri: Yes, Substack IS a social media blog where anyone can write whatever they want with no editorial oversight and with no fact-checking control. Substack does not ensure the veracity of what any of their bloggers write and does not monitor its own content. That means Substack bloggers can post any false content, conspiracy theories, or propaganda they choose to post. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- BetsyRMadison, I think this gets a bit theoretical. We would write the same thing ("Seymour Hersh wrote that US blew up the NS pipeline based on an anonymous source") whether we cite his substack or any of the RS which reported on it. Alaexis¿question? 20:15, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Alaexis:, I agree and disagree, here's what I mean: Yes, I agree we would write about what Hersh alleges if RS report on it. No, we would not write about Hersh's allegations if the only source is his blog. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 21:42, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- I agree, if his blog were the only place to say it would be undue to mention it in the article. Alaexis¿question? 21:45, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Alaexis:, I agree and disagree, here's what I mean: Yes, I agree we would write about what Hersh alleges if RS report on it. No, we would not write about Hersh's allegations if the only source is his blog. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 21:42, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- @BetsyRMadison Substack is NOT social media, please. Read this: Substack. — kashmīrī TALK 12:08, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Also, it is not true that blogs are always not RS. WP:V says that "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." Alaexis¿question? 20:17, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- I strongly disagree that Hersh is a subject-matter expert in the Nord Stream sabotage, or Nord Stream, or sabotage, or the Russia/Ukraine war, or the Biden administration, or the CIA, or the Norwegian government, or anything else even remotely relevant. Arguably he might be an SME in My Lai or Abu Ghraib, but not in this. Levivich (talk) 21:41, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- One could argue that he *is* a subject matter expert in various covert operations of varying nefariousness. Alaexis¿question? 21:46, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- One could, at the risk of sounding quite foolish. For one thing, neither My Lai nor Abu Ghraib were covert operations. But let's assume they were. A journalist who breaks two stories--35 years apart--about two covert ops does not thereby become a subject matter expert in covert ops. (The same holds true if you substitute anything else for "covert ops"). A subject matter expert in covert ops (or any other subject) would have (a) a PhD, or (b) a decades-long career in covert ops (or in that subject), like a retired CIA operative. Hersh is no more an SME in covert ops than Woodward or Bernstein, or any other journalist who ever broke a govt scandal. Levivich (talk) 21:52, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Alaexis: That is not true either. Hersh is not in expert in "covert operations." Hersh had never planned, organized, facilitated in, or participated in a "covert operation" so he is not an expert on that. As someone wrote above: Woodward and Bernstein may be experts in journalistic practises, "But neither would be experts in the subjects they covered during that career." Same goes for Hersh, he may be an expert in journalism, but he's not expert in covert ops, Nord Stream, sabotage, underwater gas line explosions, or even gas lines. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 22:03, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- One could argue that he *is* a subject matter expert in various covert operations of varying nefariousness. Alaexis¿question? 21:46, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Alaexis:, You are mistaken. Hersh is not a "subject matter expert" on Nord Stream, on underwater gas pipe explosions, or even on gas pipes for that matter. And, Hersh has done no previous work in "the relevant field" of Nord Stream, underwater gas pipe explosions, or gas pipes. Therefore, the portion you quoted does not apply to Hersh or Hersh's blog. Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 21:45, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Strongly disagree that Hersh could be considered a SME on this topic. It’s a highly technical topic and he has zero qualifications to authorise his reporting on these technicalities. BobFromBrockley (talk) 03:18, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- I strongly disagree that Hersh is a subject-matter expert in the Nord Stream sabotage, or Nord Stream, or sabotage, or the Russia/Ukraine war, or the Biden administration, or the CIA, or the Norwegian government, or anything else even remotely relevant. Arguably he might be an SME in My Lai or Abu Ghraib, but not in this. Levivich (talk) 21:41, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Also, it is not true that blogs are always not RS. WP:V says that "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." Alaexis¿question? 20:17, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not 3: I think we can let RS do the donkey work in that case (and I imagine plenty of them will be doing it).Selfstudier (talk) 21:51, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not 3: Per WP:FRINGE. Rsk6400 (talk) 07:47, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Comment: #3 is essentially about sourcing Wikipedia articles to self-published content on Substack (because evaluating Hersh's individual blog entry is outside of RSN scope I believe). It's worth noting that editors commonly source content to Substack – almost 1,000 occurrences – and this has not been questioned to-date. It's unclear why Hersh's post should be an exception. — kashmīrī TALK 14:45, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- How in the world is evaluating the reliability of a source in a specific context outside of the scope of RSN? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:53, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes to all 3 as per Alaexis answer.--Mhorg (talk) 20:15, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not 3. This is a self-published source without editorial oversight. Hersh is not a subject-matter export on this topic; being an investigative journalist does not make you an expert on anything that you are investigating. I think there was a point in his career when you could consider Hersh an expert on national-security matters; a review of his record (and how reliable sources write about him) over the last decade suggests that this is not the case now. Mackensen (talk) 22:06, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes to one, No to 2 and 3. There is just no way around the fact that our Wikipedia:Verifiability policy explicitly forbids using questionable sources in those ways. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:08, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes to one, iffy on 2, no on three. WP:ABOUTSELF seems to apply, and that seems to only clearly cover case 1. As others have noted, 3 is not needed as other sources that don't need special exceptions already exist. 2 is not the worst, since it is on his own article, but I have questions about WP:UNDUE; Wikipedia doesn't need to list every self-published blog post, and I'm not sure a case has been made that this one bears special mentioning in even his own article. --Jayron32 14:41, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Comment. Of course the pipes were blown by Russian saboteurs, but this is hardly relevant. Can a primary self-published source for a conspiracy theory be linked if the theory was also covered in a number of valid secondary RS (as in this case)? I would say "yes", why not, simply for a convenience of a reader. My very best wishes (talk) 17:37, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Hi @My very best wishes:, I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying. Are you saying that you feel Hersh's blog post should be used as a cited source "for convenience" to a reader? If that is what you're saying, then I disagree and here's why. 1) Hersh's blog is WP:NOTRS & WP:QS so should not be added. 2) Hersh posted his blog on Substack which is also NOTRS & QS. 3) I don't feel "convience" for the reader is a reason to violate WPNOTRS & WP:QS. 4) Wiki is WP:NOTWEBHOST so, if a reader is curious to see Hersh's blog, then they can 'google it.' Best regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 18:46, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, I think it can be used by making an additional link in content about his theory that should be described using other secondary RS that are not self-published. I do not think it would harm to make such link. If we had only the self-published article and no secondary RS that discuss it, I would say "no". My very best wishes (talk) 00:54, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- I suppose it could go as an external link, if convenience is all that's wanted. Selfstudier (talk) 18:51, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- It does not fit any of the WP:ELYES criteria for the relevant articles. I think what mvbw is saying is that we shouldn’t use it as a source for facts but secondary coverage suggests it’s mildly noteworthy, and it doesn’t hurt to include the primary source for ease as well. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:16, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think "Sites that fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources." would cover it. Selfstudier (talk) 09:30, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Selfstudier: I disagree and here's why - the "information (details) about the subject" of Hersh's blog are not corroborated and not verified by any "knowledgeable sources." In other words, other than just 3 RS writing, Hersh wrote a blog post, there is not a single RS that I'm aware of who has verified the "information about the subject" from any "knowledgeable sources." In fact, one of the RS used in the wiki piece on Hersh's blog debunks Hersh's allegations about the "subject." [11] For those reasons & reasons @Bobfrombrockley: stated, I don't that WP:ELYES applies here. Best Regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 15:13, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- I agree, I meant that Hersh himself is a "knowledgeable source", that doesn't mean he is an expert, if he was, I'd say cite him directly with attribution. It's just an external link, no biggy. Selfstudier (talk) 15:17, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Selfstudier: I disagree and here's why - the "information (details) about the subject" of Hersh's blog are not corroborated and not verified by any "knowledgeable sources." In other words, other than just 3 RS writing, Hersh wrote a blog post, there is not a single RS that I'm aware of who has verified the "information about the subject" from any "knowledgeable sources." In fact, one of the RS used in the wiki piece on Hersh's blog debunks Hersh's allegations about the "subject." [11] For those reasons & reasons @Bobfrombrockley: stated, I don't that WP:ELYES applies here. Best Regards~ BetsyRMadison (talk) 15:13, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think "Sites that fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources." would cover it. Selfstudier (talk) 09:30, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- It does not fit any of the WP:ELYES criteria for the relevant articles. I think what mvbw is saying is that we shouldn’t use it as a source for facts but secondary coverage suggests it’s mildly noteworthy, and it doesn’t hurt to include the primary source for ease as well. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:16, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- I suppose it could go as an external link, if convenience is all that's wanted. Selfstudier (talk) 18:51, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Sorta no to all 3 but with conditions. My views are somewhat similar to My very best wishes except that I have not analysed the secondary source situation enough to comment on whether there is reason to include. In other words, while I don't think the blog post can be used by itself, if secondary source coverage of the blog post means it is mentioned in some article, I don't see any harm in including a link to the blog post. I've fairly sure we do this all the time in fact, it's no significantly different from the way we may include a link to a tweet or Facebook post when these are covered in reliable secondary sources even though there are generally not RS by themselves. However to be clear, I have no view on whether secondary source coverage is enough to warrant mention in any article. Nil Einne (talk) 23:28, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes to all 3, given that his accusations have been met with denials and been covered in third party secondary sources. With that, including the initial accusation by a notable and noteworthy commentator is fine. nableezy - 17:36, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- 1-Yes and source it to WP:RS not his blog 2,3-NO as per WP:SPS he is not an expert on nordstream or explosions --Shrike (talk) 22:03, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes to all 3: His reporting has prompted a response from the White House, making it extremely notable for the subject of question #3 especially. Mottezen (talk) 22:54, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- The White House has also previously made statements to deny the existence of UFOs, so that means people who say UFOs exist are reliable sources? FOARP (talk) 14:20, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not 3 - Self published blog, per WP:SPS. Hersh also obviously not a reliable source nowadays generally, since he has previously authored highly unreliable pieces (e.g., his account for the Bin Laden raid, which is denied by all involved, and does not match with any of the evidence). FOARP (talk) 14:17, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes to 1 (provided it is under subheading clarifying that it is a blog post). No to 2 and 3 per WP:SPS, WP:QS, WP:FRINGE, and WP:FRIND. -Location (talk) 16:28, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
Mercola.com
This is NOT an RfC, (so just discuss) but a feeler for whether we should start one to see if we can get his websites (plural) listed and deprecated at WP:RSP. I was amazed to see it wasn't even mentioned there. His websites are so bad they violate WP:ELNO.
Joseph Mercola is possibly the most infamous, currently living, peddler of pseudoscientific alternative medicine products and truly dangerous ideas. He is now suing Google/YouTube for removing his videos. He has several websites, the most notable of which is https://www.mercola.com/. He has also moved much of his content to Substack, which is an infamous "last refuge" for bad actors who get banned elsewhere (that applies to quacks and fringe journalists). Mercola's content is literally "so bad no one else will host it".[1] Here's a sample from our article:
- He was warned by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in February 2021 for selling fake COVID-19 cures.[2][3] In March, the Center for Countering Digital Hate named Mercola as one of the 12 most prominent sources of COVID misinformation in a report later cited by US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.[4] In September his accounts on YouTube were removed by the company for breaking their policies on COVID-19 misinformation.[5] Mercola then moved some of his content to Substack. According to Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Mercola's content is "so bad no one else will host it".[1]
- On September 29, 2022, Mercola filed suit against Google, who owns YouTube, alleging they violated their provision of giving the subscriber an opportunity to remove any of their content to comply to a new policy.[6]
Is there some interest in pursuing this endeavor? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:51, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Mercola.com Shows exactly one use that isn't the article about Mercola himself. I think in order to call a RfC you would need to demonstrate that its use is a problem, which I just don't think is the case here. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:55, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- I removed that one other use (it was at Sauerkraut, where the citation was not needed). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:04, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- I would say Mercola should be considered generally unreliable if not deprecated. However as Hemiauchenia says I am not aware of anyone trying to add Mercola links to Wikipedia. Andre🚐 00:59, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Definitely unreliable, don't need an RfC. Could be a case for Xlinkbot. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:04, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
It appears that most editors are fairly sensible since they aren't adding him as a source to articles. That's good. What I'm really after is a community decision at WP:RSP about it. We need to get it deprecated. (Only sensible and uncontroversial sources can explain no mention at WP:RSP. Mercola is neither, so a community decision should be found there.) Right now his article has only one link, in the infobox, after I removed one link from the External links as a violation of WP:ELNO. I'd like to get rid of the one in the infobox, and I'm hoping a decision at WP:RSP would enable that move.
What's the next step? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:35, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think you can go ahead and remove the link from the infobox based on this discussion, but you don't need to add it to RSP unless it comes up again in the future. Andre🚐 03:37, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Okay. Then, if anyone complains, we can take this further. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:40, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- It probably doesn't matter because anyone can search for Mercola and easily find his website. In regards to his lawsuit he sued because Google had a policy to allow all users time to comply with any new policy changes but neglected to do that in his case.Red Rose 13 (talk) 04:06, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Okay. Then, if anyone complains, we can take this further. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:40, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Strong support to deprecation. It's not that the links are there at this moment; it's that they keep being added every now and then and it takes time and effort to remove them.
- Links to this peddler of fringe nonsense should have no place in any self-respecting encyclopaedia. — kashmīrī TALK 12:16, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- So like, what's the point? Deprecating/listing on RSP/etc. etc. are all about controversial sites; things that either have been, or that we anticipating being, points of contention. Stuff that is on the face completely unreliable doesn't need to be listed (or even discussed, really), as we expect people to be able to apply WP:RS all by themselves, without coming here to ask permission or checking the list at RSP. There's no need to get community consensus to remove every bullshit source that has ever existed. Most of them, you can just remove or not use; if there is a controversy, then this might be an appropriate venue to discuss, but we have no evidence that anyone is trying to use this, nor do we have evidence that its use is widespread. If it's shit, get rid of it on your own, WP:SOFIXIT applies here as anywhere else. Permission is not needed. --Jayron32 14:38, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
I agree there's no reason to have an RfC on RSN but I think most other editors have missed a wider point. The OP seems to be under the mistaken impression deprecation would mean we're forbidden from including the website in the infobox or as an external link and that seems to be the primary reason they're asking for deprecation.
But that's not what deprecation is for or what it achieves. It's not even what blacklisting achieves since the link can still be whitelisted where it is appropriate. Consider famous cases like Breitbart News and Daily Mail. Unsurprisingly both articles include links to their respective media outlets in their infoboxes. (Maybe elsewhere, I didn't check.)
To be clear, deprecation is about preventing editors using something as a source in all but the most exceptional of circumstances. It makes it clear to editors the default would be to never use the source (as an RS) and they would have to have a very very good argument as to why we should use it as a source in any particular case. Blacklisting is about preventing abuse or mistakes e.g. for sites which are spammed or which contain dangerous enough material that we have to be sure it never occurs. There should be evidence there is actually such a problem. If there are zero links to a source and people aren't too many cases of people having to remove them then it is unlikely blacklisting is needed.
Whether to include a link to the website not as a source but either as external link or infobox should be discussed in the article talk pages where such a link is proposed guided by our relevant guidelines and policies of which WP;RS is basically uninvolved. There is no reason to involve RSN in it since it's not an RS question the website isn't being used as a source in any way.
We definitely consider potential harm from the website but you don't need a discussion on RSN to establish potential harm. For example we removed the link to Kiwi Farms after this RFC Talk:Kiwi Farms/Archive 4#URL and 8chan after Talk:8chan/Archive 2#Inclusion of the link to 8chan but still link to Stormfront after Talk:Stormfront (website)#URL. To give a bunch more examples, we also still link to The Right Stuff (blog), VDARE, [[The Daily Stormer], 4chan, Encyclopedia Dramatica and Wikipediocracy. No idea about discussion on these. If any of those websites have ever been discussed on RSN before, I assume these have been short discussions since there's no question they aren't suitable as sources. (Like with Mercola, they're so bad that they're definitelty a case where I think we should not include a link even if we're covering something because of secondary source discussion unlike I think we generally should as mentioned in a discussion above.)
With the exception of the last three, personally I consider all of these websites more harmful than Mercola. But I acknowledge a key difference is with most of them it's unlikely people visiting via us is a significant factor in the harm since anyone who is taken in by them is probably going to find it anyway and are unfortunately already down a rabbit hole Wikipedia can't do much to prevent. But it's possible some people may visit Mercola's website and be taken in by some of the absolute nonsense without that being the case.
Note I am not saying you need to start an RfC on the article talk page. As always, if you've removed the link, explained your reasons and no one has objected you can leave it at that. I'm also not trying to say we should keep a link to Mercola's website/s. There is a key difference between the Mercola case and the one ones namely that the other ones the entire article is basically about the website but thankfully we do not have and I don't think we need to have an article on Mercola's websites, we just have one on the person. But the point is discussion here and even deprecating or blacklisting is of very limited relevance to the question you seem to be asking.
References
- ^ a b Elizabeth Dwoskin (January 27, 2022). "Conspiracy theorists, banned on major social networks, connect with audiences on newsletters and podcasts". The Washington Post.
- ^ "FDA warns Mercola: Stop selling fake COVID remedies and cures". Alliance for Science.
- ^ Nutrition, Center for Food Safety and Applied (March 4, 2021). "Mercola.com, LLC – 607133 – 02/18/2021". FDA.
- ^ Salam, Erum (July 17, 2021). "Majority of Covid misinformation came from 12 people, report finds". The Guardian. Retrieved July 18, 2021.
- ^ Alba, Davey (September 29, 2021). "YouTube bans all anti-vaccine misinformation". The New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2021.
- ^ Pierson, Brendan (September 29, 2022). "Google sued by anti-vax doctor over YouTube ban". Reuters. Retrieved February 11, 2023.
RFC: Frontiers Media
Which of the following best describes Frontiers Media?
- Option 1: Generally reliable
- Option 2: Additional considerations apply
- Option 3: Generally unreliable
- Option 4: Deprecate
RFC Before Previous Discussion 1 Previous discussion 2 Selfstudier (talk) 14:47, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Survey (Frontiers)
- Option 3, generally unreliable Unlike established academic publishers (Elsevier, Emerald, Springer, Sage, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, etc.), Frontiers is pay for publishing. Most respected academic publishers also offer the option to pay for open access but, crucially, that has no impact on the peer reviewing nor on the editorial decision, and authors are bot required to pay. Not so for Frontiers, where payment is compulsory and the peer-review is "fast and easy". It does not mean all research published in Frontiers is wrong (much may be correct) but it does mean that it is payment, rather than the result on the peer-review process, that decide the outcome. As such, it is generally unreliable in academia. Jeppiz (talk) 14:55, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Payment is compulsory for essentially all gold OA journals, including very respectable journals. One could easily make the same critique of Scientific Reports, which is also full of both junk and excellent research, but no one seems to be clamouring to make it generally unreliable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:16, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Open the discussion on Scientific Reports then, now that you've pointed out that its not generally reliable there will be some sort of clamor... Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:28, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm pretty sure most people who cite SciRep are well aware of its mixed reputation. It's also published by Springer Nature, which is a generally reliable publisher, which makes the case for classifying it as "generally unreliable" more difficult. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:33, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Open the discussion on Scientific Reports then, now that you've pointed out that its not generally reliable there will be some sort of clamor... Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:28, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Payment is compulsory for essentially all gold OA journals, including very respectable journals. One could easily make the same critique of Scientific Reports, which is also full of both junk and excellent research, but no one seems to be clamouring to make it generally unreliable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:16, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 i.e. Status quo (WP:CITEWATCH#Frontiers Media). There is excellent research in frontiers journals. There's also garbage research. It's a mixed enough bag that you can't summarily rule it out as a source. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:58, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- If it is “pay to publish”, then I would not call it generally reliable. It might qualify as specifically reliable (context is important)… but, even then, I would treat anything they publish as SPS by the author. In-text attribution would be important, and WP:DUE would come into play. Blueboar (talk) 15:23, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- #3, generally unreliable. With regret, because they have published some valuable articles, too. But my limited experience has taught me that utter crap is also found in Frontiers journals, published either for payment or because you're friends with the journal's chief editor and no serious journal will publish you. — kashmīrī TALK 15:53, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 per HB. HB really knows what he's talking about when it comes to academic journals, and he regularly removes actual predatory journals. I don't cite frontiers very often, but I occasionally do so if the authors are subject matter experts (which means that the work is standing up on the reputation of the author rather than the journal). If it is judged generally unreliable, then there will be no room for nuance regarding these cases. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:16, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 3, generally unreliable. The poor reputation at RSN discussions has persisted for years. Where is the evidence they have done anything to improve their editorial process? Bad reports continue to come out,[12] and they are now being disregarded by some universities.[13]. In most RSN dicussions, the consistent advice I am seeing is that they shouldn't be cited for biomedical stuff[14] and other "important" stuff, yet that's the majority of their output. It's difficult to see why they should not be deprecated. - Hunan201p (talk) 19:44, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 I tend towards Headbomb's logic. Some Frontier journals are highly respected (e.g. Frontiers in Immunology which acts as the journal of the International Union of Immunological Societies), some are not. I wouldn't want a situation where use of very good, solid, peer-reviewed review articles in Frontier in Immunology can't be used. Red Fiona (talk) 21:25, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- 3 or 4 - Yes, sometimes garbage journals publish good work. Sometimes they publish useful work frequently enough to be tempting to us as Wikipedia editors. Is the defense here that because its a convenient journal, despite its problems, we should be citing them anyway? It's an extraordinary and supremely rare rare situations where we absolutely need to be on the cutting edge of research, and therefor need to cite a primary source from a predatory journal where no better sources exist. Grayfell (talk) 07:27, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2: The status quo of 'use with caution' is the most practical approach. Frontiers has dozens of journals, and the case for any given journal, in any given subject area, is going to be different. The assessment of that should remain case-by-case, and be performed by editors willing to put in the legwork of scrutinizing the quality of individuals papers, their authors and the reviewers. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:48, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 is the most sensible option, per Headbomb. Papers should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. WP:MREL, with the footnote being highlighted by Headbomb's unreliable.js tool, should be enough to drive people to discuss these on the talk page and determine whether a paper should or shouldn't be used. DFlhb (talk) 10:02, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 The CiteWatch entry above does not seem to be invalid; no evidence has been presented that the situation has changed positively or negatively. Problematic, but not a "never use" option. --Jayron32 14:18, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- 2. I'm sympathetic to the argument that Open Access journals where the content is free-as-in-libre content for all don't jive with funding methods relying on paying to access content and so other funding options have to be explored and is at least philosophically different then pay to play. I would not hold that against them to the full extent of a predatory/pay to play journal. That said for some of them the intentionally wide net they allow does merit caution. The current situation seems to take that into account. --(loopback) ping/whereis 14:55, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 Agree with Headbomb. Every publisher publishes some garbage. I have read perfectly good review articles in Frontiers journals. I would be more concerned about the original research published there, which we shouldn't be using much anyway. Pelirojopajaro (talk) 21:34, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Discussion (Frontiers)
I understood that one still can cite as SPS/subject matter expert even if the publisher is WP:GUNREL, is that wrong? Selfstudier (talk) 16:43, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- If it's a generally reliable publisher, it isn't self-published. If the source is challenged in the talk page, you could certainly point out that the publisher is generally reliable and the author is a subject matter expert. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:57, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Sorry, my fault, using these dratted abbreviations, GR meaning WP:GUNREL as opposed to WP:GREL. Fixed. Selfstudier (talk) 17:53, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Headbomb, Hemiauchenia, Selfstudier - like Selfstudier says, option 3 would not exclude ever citing articles in Frontiers. However, option 2 (and 1) makes it a free for all. Perhaps our fields are different, but for me, if there is "excellent and garbage research" (as I agree there can be), I don't think we should say it's all fine. If a restaurant served some dishes that were delicious and some that were poisoned, I would not eat there. A hallmark of virtually all good academic publishers is that they don't publish garbage. I would still keep an open mind to cite experts who had published in Frontiers - but strongly caution against the status quo that anyone can cite anything from Frontiers and shrug it off by saying "it's unclear". Selfstudier, Falk was a serious researcher and whatever the outcome of this discussion, I would not use it to disqualify Falk. Jeppiz (talk) 16:54, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- All publishers at least on occasion publish garbage research. Is Elsevier generally unreliable because it once published a paper that suggested that octopus were space aliens? [15] and which one malacologist described as
pseudoscience and nonsense
[16].? Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:07, 12 February 2023 (UTC)- Also publishers have better and worse journals, and bad research gets published. Again, we are in very different fields, but in my field no good journal (none of the top 200) requires payment, and all have proper review process. That is not true for Frontiers. It doesn't mean everything in Frontiers is bad or anything in Elsevier good, but it does mean they are different kinds of publishers. For Elsevier, the research has to be good (and payment for open access is optional); for Frontiers, the payment has to be made (and research quality is optional). That is not comparable. Jeppiz (talk) 17:33, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Pay-for-publishing Gold OA is standard for many major publishers used in paleontology, like PLOS One and PeerJ, both of which have reasonable peer review standards. The idea that a source should be looked down on because it is pay for OA, regardless of peer review standards, is not tenable across the whole of academic publishing. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:42, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- To add to Hemiauchenia's point, lots of funding bodies are moving towards "you have to publish in open access". Red Fiona (talk) 21:26, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- "And be sure to include that in your budget proposal because we'll pay for it as part of your funding." (I'm not setting aside the impact this move toward pay-for-publishing has on self-funded researchers, graduate students, independent scholars, etc. - just noting that including this as part of your budget request for research grants has quickly become the norm in those disciplines where this is occurring.) ElKevbo (talk) 03:29, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- To add to Hemiauchenia's point, lots of funding bodies are moving towards "you have to publish in open access". Red Fiona (talk) 21:26, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Pay-for-publishing Gold OA is standard for many major publishers used in paleontology, like PLOS One and PeerJ, both of which have reasonable peer review standards. The idea that a source should be looked down on because it is pay for OA, regardless of peer review standards, is not tenable across the whole of academic publishing. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:42, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Also publishers have better and worse journals, and bad research gets published. Again, we are in very different fields, but in my field no good journal (none of the top 200) requires payment, and all have proper review process. That is not true for Frontiers. It doesn't mean everything in Frontiers is bad or anything in Elsevier good, but it does mean they are different kinds of publishers. For Elsevier, the research has to be good (and payment for open access is optional); for Frontiers, the payment has to be made (and research quality is optional). That is not comparable. Jeppiz (talk) 17:33, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
- Comment: Here is a discussion on researchgate about Frontiers, originally shared by @Zero. It's quite interesting, with posters reporting a range of experiences with Frontiers, including many reporting experiencing a long and thorough review process with very serious reviewers. Also at least one poster who had a paper rejected (one out of four), and other interesting details about Frontiers apparently waving costs or offering cost discounts - much of which squares poorly with it being a slapdash, cash-for-publication outlet. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:44, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- On the other hand, an actual participant in the review of a Frontiers study has given a different perspective.[17] - Hunan201p (talk) 14:31, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- As noted at the talk page, that is not at all persuasive. Selfstudier (talk) 14:51, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- On the other hand, an actual participant in the review of a Frontiers study has given a different perspective.[17] - Hunan201p (talk) 14:31, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Question/Suggestion
Given that pretty much everyone agrees that Frontiers is problematic, but some users point out that some of its journals are decent enough, surely the best option would be to make that distinction? If we all agree that several journals are "garbage", it should be an easy decision to decide that they are not RS, while still keeping an open mind on the Frontiers journals identified as reliable. Jeppiz (talk) 21:06, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- It's not even journal by journal thing (though some journal are worse than others), it's a paper by paper thing. Nearly every Frontiers journal lands in a 'sort of ish I guess maybe?' grey area. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:23, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- Seconding Headbomb's comment about these journals landing in a grey area. My only addition is that the amount of fringe in a given Frontiers journal is often directly proportional to the amount of fringe in a field, if its a wacky field it might get pretty wild. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:28, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- How is this different from what is already written at WP:CITEWATCH#Frontiers Media --Jayron32 12:53, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Headbomb and Horse Eye's Back: In reality this seldom happens. Mostly, the bad science just keeps piling up, and the good editors exhaust themselves trying to fix the articles while the socks and the IPs wear them out. From my experience, most genetics articles on European and Asian ethnicities have sat littered with outdated pre-prints and garbage interpretations of poor sources for years. People know where the really bad citations are, but don't have the time or the energy to explain why and remove them. The idea that a website like Wikipedia with thousands of high-volume research articles (but only a handful of competent and unoccupied editors) is going to "sort everything out on a case by case basis" is extremely unrealistic and impractical. - Hunan201p (talk) 14:45, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- That's more a problem that would need a WP:GENRS akin to WP:MEDRS to solve than it is a problem requiring a ban on Frontiers journals being cited. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:24, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- Either route is unlikely to succeed though, as long as people favor a "grey zone" approach to source reliability. Nobody wants to compromise and set standards for the other sciences, lest that we lose the privilege of citing that one magic paper that stood out from the rest. - Hunan201p (talk) 17:26, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- This exactly matches my observation as well. I've guessing every experienced editor has had to explain why they removed bad sources. Imagine how much more tedious it is when a source is in a supposed "grey area". Nobody has that kind of time.
- Human genetics articles have a specific problem where they include undue details that shouldn't be included even when supported by the best primary sources from the best journals in the field.
- Being generous, I think a lot of editors just want to share their own enthusiasm for their field and lose sight of the big picture. Anyone who edits in this area knows that there is also a more sinister problem of cherry-picking to support ideological conclusions. There is no clean way to differentiate between these two motivations, but getting rid of predatory journals seems like a reasonable starting point. Grayfell (talk) 02:16, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- That's more a problem that would need a WP:GENRS akin to WP:MEDRS to solve than it is a problem requiring a ban on Frontiers journals being cited. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:24, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Headbomb and Horse Eye's Back: In reality this seldom happens. Mostly, the bad science just keeps piling up, and the good editors exhaust themselves trying to fix the articles while the socks and the IPs wear them out. From my experience, most genetics articles on European and Asian ethnicities have sat littered with outdated pre-prints and garbage interpretations of poor sources for years. People know where the really bad citations are, but don't have the time or the energy to explain why and remove them. The idea that a website like Wikipedia with thousands of high-volume research articles (but only a handful of competent and unoccupied editors) is going to "sort everything out on a case by case basis" is extremely unrealistic and impractical. - Hunan201p (talk) 14:45, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- How is this different from what is already written at WP:CITEWATCH#Frontiers Media --Jayron32 12:53, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- Seconding Headbomb's comment about these journals landing in a grey area. My only addition is that the amount of fringe in a given Frontiers journal is often directly proportional to the amount of fringe in a field, if its a wacky field it might get pretty wild. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:28, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
The Free Press
Bari Weiss has converted her Substack Common Sense into what appears to be an attempt to create a more "institutional" organization called The Free Press. It describes itself as a "new media company", and it does not seem obvious to describe it merely as a blog (as Weiss' Wiki article seems to imply). It features a cast of contributing journalists/writers, not only Weiss. I know Bari Weiss is, perhaps to some, a politically controversial figure, yet her credentials as an established journalist seem fairly clear by her resumé. Is there any consensus or opinions on whether this source is OK for Wikipedia? Obviously it not a major, traditional institution like the Washington Post or ABC, but it does appear to merit some discussion as it appears to be rather more than a blog. Euor (talk) 20:23, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- A pretty looking blog is still a blog. There is no editorial board, no standards, and no mechanism for corrections, literally nothing except a note from Bari Weiss... It remains a blog, not a bona fide news organization. Slywriter (talk) 21:44, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- It still looks like Weiss's blog. Should be treated as a WP:SPS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:48, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- I agree with the above, WP:SPS and should not be treated as a media organisation. Jeppiz (talk) 23:15, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
- This looks to have some degree of editorial oversight, and I wouldn't characterize it as being composed entirely of WP:SPS. There are multiple people who serve as editors over the content published, including Weiss herself Peter Savodnik—both of whom are serious journalists. Nellie Bowles, who is involved both as a reporter and in a broader strategic role, is also both full-time on this project and a serious journalist. My only concerns are (1) that the content tends to be more essay-based than straight reporting (but Vox is considered WP:GREL so that does not appear to be blocker in and of itself) and that (2) the new media organization is truly new; it doesn't appear to be well-established quite yet. But the basis of editorial review and fact-checking appear to be present, so this is definitely not a self-published source in any reasonable sense of the term as it pertains to the articles written by the various writers and contributors. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 04:44, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- Possibly better than most group blogs but still basically that. No reputation for fact checking an accuracy so probably not a usable source for facts unless authors are subject matter experts. As opinion, unlikely to be noteworthy as too fringe. So not necessarily never usable but I can’t imagine many situations when it’d be worth citing. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:23, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- What exactly do you mean by
too fringe
? The opinion range seems to broadly span center-left to center-right. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 16:48, 14 February 2023 (UTC)- I also found that statement a bit odd. I also find it reflecting centre-right to centre-left view. Obviously it will appear to contain deeply heterodox opinions if you strongly adhere to a certain orthodoxy. But if you zoom out and attempt to detach yourself from POV (impossible to do completely, of course), it seems to reflect certain ordinary opinions of a considerable segment of the population. Example: it appears The Free Press has now written an article concerning a new audio interview series with J.K. Rowling. If you strongly reject Rowling's views, I am sure it would appear "fringe", bringing on all kinds of criticisms toward The Free Press about "platforming" and so on. But zooming out, is J.K. Rowling and her stance in the whole gender debate "fringe"? Or is it representative of the position of a considerable section of the population, whether you agree with that position or not? To dismiss it as "fringe" despite a wide base of support for her, including among generally the right-side of the political spectrum (~half the population?) implies a value judgement that is problematically POV to me. And I say this as someone that is no fan of her positions. Anyways, this is beside the point of whether its editorial standards and reputation is acceptable as of yet.--Euor (talk) 19:22, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
- What exactly do you mean by
- WP:SPS still, despite the glossy coat of credibility paint. It still has none. Zaathras (talk) 03:28, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Zaathras. An SPS by any other name is still an SPS. As far as Wikipedia is concerned, it could just as well be a blog. It's a self-published source we can only use on the author's biography here. In no case can it ever be used to comment on a living person anywhere at Wikipedia. That's BLP 101. The only way we can document what it says is the exact quotes from it that are cited by secondary and third party RS, and then we cite those sources/URLs. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:48, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Showering and disease prevention
Shower has a section that reads:
Showering is mostly part of a daily routine primarily to promote cleanliness and prevent odor, disease and infection. Advances in science and medicine in the 19th century began to realize the benefit of regular bathing to an individual's health.
This statement is backed up by a single source: a sociology book from 2003. While I do not discount the importance of WP:SKYBLUE for common-sense statements, it must be balanced with WP:MEDRS in this case since the article is making sweeping claims of the disease prevention effects of showering, and MEDRS firmly establishes that medical claims must be backed up by sufficient peer-reviewed secondary studies published in reputable journals and not a book about sociology, and certainly not science from the 1800s. Existing precedent would suggest removing this statement until MEDRS-compliant sources can be found. MarshallKe (talk) 13:18, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- This seems to be more an a wp:undue than a wp:rs issue. Slatersteven (talk) 13:21, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'd move this to the talk page rather than deleting, to give people an opportunity to look for MEDRS that may or may not substantiate dueness. I generally don't like to judge dueness based merely on sources we cite, without doing my own survey of sources from scratch. Also, while we should use MEDRS for medical claims, the sociologist author seems reputable, and I'd expect there to be non-medical statements we can source to her. DFlhb (talk) 21:37, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
The Colorado Times Recorder, Passage, and Idavox as sources in the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism article
There is currently an ongoing debate at the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism about whether the sources listed above are reliable. I have tried to argue they are through relevant details and wikipolicy, and those opposed have tended to just say the sources are "activist" without further elaboration (or reliable sources for their claim) and have in some cases resorted to personal attacks and insinuations about me as an editor. Having tried without much success to have a good faith discussion there, I'm raising the issue here for comment on their use generally and in this particular article. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:01, 15 February 2023 (UTC)TheTranarchist
The Colorado Times Recorder
(https://coloradotimesrecorder.com/, source in question)
The text that was removed sourced to the CTR is The Colorado Times Recorder listed it as a "conservative, anti-LGBTQ, pro-charter school activist group" and stated "FAIR’s Board of Advisors consists of a host of disgraced academics and journalists, many of whom have been accused of racism, pushing race science, climate change denial, sexual assault, and homophobia transphobia."
in the Reception section.
This source most obviously meets all the requirements for a WP:RS. They have a named editorial board of distinguished journalists and a clear policy for factually reviewing and verifying information before publishing, in addition to a clear retraction/correction policy. They have been cited, named, and praised extensively in well-established WP:RS and have a clear separation between opinion and analysis articles. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:01, 15 February 2023 (UTC)TheTranarchist
- Can you link to the editorial board? Because I see a listing of staffers (not all with a journalism background and many with political orientations described)[18], but not an editorial board? Additionally, the site has an explicit political orientation. Jahaza (talk) 21:37, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Link is here. Three writers state they are progressive, only one does not reference past journalistic work. The paper describes itself as
nonpartisan, with a progressive orientation
. Per WP:BIASED, this does not mean they can't be used. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:57, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Link is here. Three writers state they are progressive, only one does not reference past journalistic work. The paper describes itself as
- Apologies for the self-plagiarism: Even a generally reliable source may not be reliable in all context. This article obliquely labels a handful of advisory members (over 50 people per the FAIR website) as "disgraced" including Robert P. George, Steven Pinker, Michael Shermer due to accusations of bad stuff (and the author also cites her own op-ed to justify one of the "has been accused"). Does that seem like something that should be accepted at face value, even if attributed? --Animalparty! (talk) 21:59, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- The source primarily investigates FAIR's connections with CPAN. The figures noted are the most prominent, and other sources have often used the same ones as examples of a conservative-stacked board. That they have been accused of those things is public knowledge, most are sourced to reliable secondary coverage of the accusations or primary sources directly backing up that they were accused of those things (such as an open letter signed by hundreds or GLAAD painting a fairly damning factual picture of Robert George being homophobic and transphobic). The op-ed she cites does not suddenly mean the whole source shouldn't be used or quote not included. More to the point, her op-ed is not the source for the accusations, it is an op-ed describing accusations and providing some context. Two different things. A prominent quote to that effect is
It caused controversy when Target announced it would be pulled from its shelves Nov. 12, following outcry from the trans community
, which points to the fact she alone is not calling Shrier transphobic. That they criticized the organization and members of the board is WP:DUE, especially attributed, and to keep it out is to WP:WHITEWASH their reception. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:01, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- The source primarily investigates FAIR's connections with CPAN. The figures noted are the most prominent, and other sources have often used the same ones as examples of a conservative-stacked board. That they have been accused of those things is public knowledge, most are sourced to reliable secondary coverage of the accusations or primary sources directly backing up that they were accused of those things (such as an open letter signed by hundreds or GLAAD painting a fairly damning factual picture of Robert George being homophobic and transphobic). The op-ed she cites does not suddenly mean the whole source shouldn't be used or quote not included. More to the point, her op-ed is not the source for the accusations, it is an op-ed describing accusations and providing some context. Two different things. A prominent quote to that effect is
- It's not just the local sources that acknowledge the site's partisanship; Axios provides it as being among
Democrats and liberal organizations that began producing partisan content years ago
in Colorado, but this information is plainly available on the about page of the website, so I'm not sure that the website being left-leaning is contested anywhere. Moreover, the entire editorial board of the website is one person; any articles by him are going to have to be presumed to be self-published, as there does not appear to be any other editors who would review his work. That the extent of editorial review is a single person is also not the sort of robust sort of review process that inspires strong confidence in editorial control and editorial independence.Among local journalists, the Times Recorder's reputation appears to be mixed. A column written by local investigative reporter Jimmy Sengenberger and published in the Colorado Springs Gazette, the paper of record for the Colorado Springs area, labels the website asa mock news site run by left-wing activist Jason Salzman
. The publication's news site has previously merely labeled the website asliberal
or asprogressively bent
. Not all of the articles published in the Gazette have been as critical (some have cited it), but my general sense reading through how others use the website is that it has a mixed reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; WP:MREL probably describes it well. As such, it might not exactly be the sort of thing that we want to use to cite contentious claims alone for reasons of its reputation for fact-checking, and I would question the extent to which items reported on solely by the Colorado Times Recorder warrant inclusion in the article—even with attribution. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 22:38, 15 February 2023 (UTC)- I don't see where you pulled WP:MREL or
mixed reputation for fact-checking and accuracy
out of. A much larger number of more established WP:RS have lauded it's coverage and reliability. Additionally, the article in question was not written by the editor, so while that consideration may apply for articles he himself writes, it does not apply to this one. - You only linked to 1 source that criticizes their coverage instead of just noting they have a left-wing bias, which nobody disagrees with. The Gazette does not criticize their accuracy, they criticize their description of CPAN as extremist:
twice in December, the Colorado Times Recorder — a mock news site run by left-wing activist Jason Salzman — attempted to paint CPAN as a right-wing extremist group working to undermine public education and harm the LGBTQ community. The site grouped CPAN with the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, Advocates for D20 Kids, and the longstanding Independence Institute. None of these organizations are extremist.
The author discloses CPAN has awarded him, so it's hardly independent. Notably, this is a strawman, as the article does not once call themextremist
, they call them aconservative, anti-LGBTQ, pro-charter school activist group
. They provide more than ample evidence for each facet of that description. As you noted, the Gazzete has found them reliable and cited them before, so one article calling them a "mock news site" and attacking a strawman without pointing out any inaccuracies by a person with a clear COI is not damning. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:29, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don't see where you pulled WP:MREL or
- I would say they should be considered generally reliable, particular as other reliable source cite them. Bias does not mean unreliable, but I would suggest they are always attributed. No comment on due issues, that's for the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:31, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Generally reliable The editorial board have great credentials, and the about page implies they even fact check opinion pieces, which seems like a rarity these days (looking at you, NYT). I wish every news site had as clear an about page as they do. This is an excellent source. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 20:51, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- The outlet as a whole is probably marginally reliable to generally reliable, given it's been around since 2016, has an established editor (albeit with an explicitly partisan stance),[19] and is periodically used by other, more established outlets like CNN and ABC. It operates as a nonprofit[20][21] that does not disclose donors.[22] (this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it raises transparency issues). Axios has stated "Progressive outlets posing as news sources is not new locally, where the Colorado Times Recorder and others publish Democratic-aligned content.", but since the website openly displays its progressive slant, this is not exactly obscure. Since it seems a rather small outlet (less than 5 k Twitter followers and 9K Facebook followers), even if considered generally reliable per WP:GREL It will normally still be necessary to analyze how much weight to give the source and how to describe its statements. Attribution/identification as a progressive source should probably be included for most political matters. In specific context, in regards to FAIR, I think this particular article is more reliable and 'weighty' for factual statements, and less 'weighty' for statements of opinions (e.g. what the author calls a "host of disgraced academics" is open to debate), but these are issues to clarify on the article's Talk page. --Animalparty! (talk) 08:44, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
Passage
(https://readpassage.com/, source in question)
The text that is most directly sourced to this in the article is a paragraph on their activities and collaborations in Canada.
This source from the start seems to meet most of the requirements for a WP:RS. They have an editorial team, with a well-respected and published managing editor and many distinguished journalists working for them as well. They have a clear verification/corrections policy and their corrections seem to be mostly date mix-ups. They distinguish between opinion and news. The only question is how it's been covered in established WP:RS. Any help with the google-fu necessary to find how they've been covered is appreciated, as "passage" unsurprisingly turns up a lot of hits. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:01, 15 February 2023 (UTC)TheTranarchist
- Not reliable; this is an opinion piece written by a freelance writer, and the website itself notes that
Please note that we only publish opinion and analysis. We do not accept news articles, pieces with original reporting, interviews or articles that have been published elsewhere.
. The claim thatthey distinguish between opinion and news
is true inasmuch as they publish exactly zero news pieces; this is in no way, shape, nor form a WP:NEWSORG. I see nothing particualar about the freelance writer that would indicate that they are an WP:SME, so I see no reasonable reason to see this as reliable except for the author's opinion (which is not WP:DUE absent coverage from secondary sources).— Red-tailed hawk (nest) 22:45, 15 February 2023 (UTC)- @TheTranarchist: What did you mean by
[t]hey distinguish between opinion and news
? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 22:47, 15 February 2023 (UTC)- My mistake sorry, I paraphrased "analysis" as "news" and on double-checking I mixed up their and the CTR's differentiation on analysis and opinion since I was drafting all 3 arguments for sources at once and got a little mixed up. Thankfully Springee brought up the example of the Atlantic's analysis pieces being considered a reliable source, as "analysis" does not mean can't be used. Additionally, this source is not used for their opinion, but factual statements about FAIR's activities and partnerships which are cited in their article and easily verifiable. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:51, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- With respect to
the Atlantic's analysis pieces being considered a reliable source
... no, it's ideas section is opinion and is treated as WP:RSOPINION. Sometimes they are given WP:WEIGHT (such as when other organizations report about them), but they aren't RS on their own. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 17:58, 16 February 2023 (UTC)- Then here the question becomes how to differentiate between Passage's opinion and analysis. Given that the source is being used for factual and verifiable statements about their activities, situated in an article analyzing groups influencing school boards in Canada, it seems to fall under the latter. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:04, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- With respect to
- My mistake sorry, I paraphrased "analysis" as "news" and on double-checking I mixed up their and the CTR's differentiation on analysis and opinion since I was drafting all 3 arguments for sources at once and got a little mixed up. Thankfully Springee brought up the example of the Atlantic's analysis pieces being considered a reliable source, as "analysis" does not mean can't be used. Additionally, this source is not used for their opinion, but factual statements about FAIR's activities and partnerships which are cited in their article and easily verifiable. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:51, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- This !vote by RTH seems to confuse opinion with analysis, and to ignore the fact that Passage exercises editorial oversight over the analysis it publishes. I therefore see no reason to treat the piece in question as if it were RSOPINION or an SPS. Newimpartial (talk) 21:44, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- I am not confusing opinion writing with analysis; I am saying that the two tend to have the same issues with fact-checking and editorial oversight, and that RSOPINION generally applies to analysis pieces as they are merely opinion pieces by another name. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 03:53, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- @TheTranarchist: What did you mean by
- Generally Reliable; the paper has a left-wing bias no question, but its factual reporting of Canadian subjects is on the same level as Generally Reliable American sources like Jacobin, and their reporters break verifiable original investigational stories. I recommend we approve this source with the same caveats we give to the Jacobin. Namely with the same disclaimer:
There is a consensus that Passage is a generally reliable but biased source. Editors should take care to adhere to the neutral point of view policy when using Passage as a source in articles, for example by quoting and attributing statements that present its authors' opinions, and ensuring that due weight is given to their perspective amongst others.
Spudst3r (talk) 06:58, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not reliable for analysis; The fact that this site makes it clear they only publish opinion and commentary makes it hard to see how we could generally use it for Wikipedia articles. The source isn't notable for their analysis thus why would their analysis be given weight? This isn't a site like The Atlantic where their analysis or commentary is generally well respected. I don't see that it's clear when an article is opinion vs commentary so the level of fact checking isn't clear if we want to use the source for basic facts. This seems more like a Quillette source than anything. Interesting to ponder but not useful for a factual encyclopedia. Springee (talk) 08:47, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- If they are only publishing analysis and opinion, then the author of the work is more useful for determining the reliability of any particular piece than the site itself. The site doesn't appear to have notability I can find, it may be useful to revisit it in the future. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:36, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not reliable per Red-tailed hawk's arguments above. I'll also add that the Passage website prominently features a "courses" section (https://readpassage.com/courses/) geared toward political advocacy. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:17, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- No evidence they should be considered reliable yet: they may have important stories and perspectives, but so far they don't seem to have made a dent in the wider world yet in terms of establishing themselves as reliable (see WP:REPUTABLE). Formed in 2020, their current editorial team appears consist of one editor and one part-time marketer (which is down from 2021's three editorial staffers, and on par with 2020's one editor. I've not yet found evidence that other established outlets commonly treat it as a reliable source, or even a noteworthy opinion platform, per WP:USEBYOTHERS. And while the editor of Passage has been published elsewhere, I can't find a track record of writing by the freelancer of the article in question. Just as it's often too soon for a Wikipedia article on promising subject, it currently appears too soon to treat this source as reliable, regardless of its editorial stance. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:17, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- I had the time to do some digging for mentions in various sources, helped by running across this tool, so here's what I found:
- Ricochet uses an article and data therein published by passage and Mastracci about the real estate holding of various MP's.
- The Breach used it cite that the MP's moonlight as landlords
- Vice speaks of Nora Loreto's article in Passage on the connections between white supremacy and the anti-lockdown movement and gets a statement from her on their article on the same topic.
- The Conversation refers to a Passage article to cite their statement on Canada's history of deregulation.
- Jacobin cites a Passage article to refer to the underfunding and privatization of the Canadian public health system.
- Mondoweiss cites them on how CanWest, a media conglomerate, has twisted facts in their reporting and how Reuters chose to break with them for it.
- Canadian Dimension refers to research Mastracci did and published in Passage on UPA flags at Ukrainian solidarity rallies in Canada
- The NB Media Co-op used them to cite its statement that mainstream Canadian media has failed to scrutinize the military.
- This is non-exhaustive but a start, I'll try and revise the list further tomorrow. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 04:57, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- News sources comment on or mention opinion pieces published in other publications. That doesn't suddenly render the opinion piece not an opinion piece, and it's extremely clear that—by the website's own editorial standards—they do not publish news reports from freelancers. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 15:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I had the time to do some digging for mentions in various sources, helped by running across this tool, so here's what I found:
- The piece you link to is written by a "freelance writer" and contributor, rather than credentialed, full-time employed journalists. By definition, it is a self-published source, whose reliability matches WP:FORBESCON.
- As for the reliability of the outlet in general: as far as I can see, their managing editor has published opinion pieces in mainstream news outlets, but has not had an established career as a journalist working full-time for a reliable source. I wouldn't qualify that as "well-respected and published", as such a career would be required for this outlet to be considered more reliable than a group blog. So, not reliable. DFlhb (talk) 12:53, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- "Freelance writer" means a professional writer that's paid on a per-article or per-project basis. Every major news organization makes use of freelance reporters. By definition, it's not self published. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 20:15, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- This !vote seems to confuse freelance status with self-publishing and a analysis with opinion; it would therefore be best to ignore it. Newimpartial (talk) 21:39, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- No it doesn't, and ignoring it would be a mistake. The comment notes correctly that this is a freelance writer, and, in light of the explicit editorial guidelines they have about freelance writers, it makes it obvious that this is analysis/opinion. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 03:52, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- More newsletter than news. This site has editorial oversight, but seems to be more of a tertiary source, as a newsletter. The specific source in question appears to be well-written, sourced and edited. However, I think the website as a whole is difficult to classify, and there's probably better sources that can be used. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 20:36, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
Idavox
(https://idavox.com/, source in question)
The text removed is In August 2021, Idavox reported that IRS Form 990's were not available since the organization is less than one year old, and speculated that due to the high number of Koch-connected people on the board, the Koch brothers are the source of some funding
. Text removed, disputed, and modified on the talk page but not re-introduced is Idavox described FAIR as "Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing" and said "it's not a civil-rights organization". They stated that their analysis of FAIR's board of advisors revealed a large number of Koch employees, Quillete contributors, and transphobes
in Reception.
Idavox, the One People's Project, and Daryle Lamont Jenkins are well known and respected for their research on the organized right and far-right. A detailed analysis of how established WP:RS reference and use Idavox (the search would be even more supportive if extended to OPP and Jenkins) is here. A summary is that reliable sources have directly used with and without explicit attribution Idavox's articles, used their footage and videos as reliable sources, praised their coverage on researching the far-right, and refer to them as "Independent news". Idavox delineates between news and opinion and not a single reliable source has ever questioned or called into doubt their reporting. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:01, 15 February 2023 (UTC)TheTranarchist
- Not reliable. This is extremely clearly WP:SPS, and a bad SPS at that. I frankly cannot believe that this is a question. Among the issues with the source are that there is:
- No author identified;
- No listed editorial staff on the website;
- No apparent editorial standards for the website's content;
- No apparent corrections policy or place to submit corrections;
- Nothing else that even hints at this having anything like a reliable source.
- To find any information about editorial oversight, I had to start trying to piece things together, and I had to go to an external website to find literally any information on who runs "Idavox". This is basically the pet project of literally a single person, and reading through the website does not give any confidence as to the site's reliability. The website is obviously reliable for the content that the website says, but it carries no WP:WEIGHT because it's not an RS when it comes to its coverage; merely slapping on attribution does not improve the article nor our coverage more broadly. For similar reasons, we don't cite She's A Homerecker for the information it says and then slap on attribution as if it's some sort of band-aid. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 21:21, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Moreover, using this self-published source for its self-proclaimed speculations about the activities of living people (i.e. Charles Koch and David Koch) is so flagrantly in violation of WP:BLPSPS that I cannot even understand why one would so much as attempt to use this in an article. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 21:30, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you for your response as you were the first to actually raise some wiki-policy. Given your arguments I can't help but agree it shouldn't be used, though I do want to note that when publishing on armed and organized white supremacists, being published anonymously is not a clear de-merit and more of a safety concern, though in conjunction with the lack of transparency on editorial oversight and corrections policy it is questionable. I'd also forgot that one of the Koch's was somehow still alive and kicking.
- For future reference, if a reliable source mentions or cite it's coverage of a particular group/event, could we refer to the site itself with attribution? TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:00, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- If a reliable source says "Idavox said X", then that source is reliable for the claim that Idavox said X. Whether it's WP:DUE is going to be a question of proportionality to the overall topic's coverage. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 05:59, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Moreover, using this self-published source for its self-proclaimed speculations about the activities of living people (i.e. Charles Koch and David Koch) is so flagrantly in violation of WP:BLPSPS that I cannot even understand why one would so much as attempt to use this in an article. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 21:30, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- This appear to be the weakest of the bunch, I don't believe it should be considered generally reliable nor used in BLPs. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 10:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not reliable per Red-tailed hawk's comprehensive arguments above. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:18, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- not reliable. No byline and no editorial board. Which is unfortunate, since I don't think there's anything factually inaccurate in the linked source. But without a byline and without clear editorial oversight, it shouldn't be used. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 20:48, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
Commenting on all three sources
Without commenting on the potential reliability of any of these sources, I really don't think it's wise to use sources for potentially contentious statements when these sources aren't listed at WP:RSP. DFlhb (talk) 12:38, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- The absence of a source from the list at WP:RSP doesn't necessarily affect reliability, per WP:RSPMISSING. It just means a source hasn't been the subject of repeated, perennial discussion. Lots of clearly reliable sources like major newspapers aren't on it, likewise nor are countless low quality unreliable sources. --Animalparty! (talk) 18:15, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Michael L. Kurtz
- Source. Kurtz, Michael L. (2011). "Organized Crime". In Wood, Amy Louise; Wilson, Charles Reagan (eds.). The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Vol. 19 Violence. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. pp. 123–124. ISBN 9780807869284. Retrieved February 14, 2023.
- Article. Joseph Civello
- Content. Kurtz writes: "Little is known about the Dallas family of Joseph Civello. Some accounts depict it as an independent Mafia family; others describe it as the Texas arm of the Marcello empire."
I was considering using that material in the article about Joseph Civello, but I am having troubling evaluating contradictory aspects of the suitability of this source. On one hand, Kurtz is a professor emeritus of history and the book in which his chapter appears was published by a university press. On the other, he is a JFK assassination "researcher" with at least two other books on the subject - both also published by a university press - who doesn't know who really killed JFK but that it had to be a conspiracy.[23] Those views spill into this book when after the bit about Civello he made a number of unfounded claims about Jack Ruby including 1) he was "probably the best-known individual in the history of organized crime in the South", 2) he "began his career in the Al Capone organization", 3) he "joined the Civello organization" when he moved to Dallas, 4) "he assisted in smuggling arms and supplies to anti-Castro guerrilla fighters in Cuba", and 5) he was in cahoots with the mob to have JFK assassinated. With these statements Kurtz repeats what various conspiracy sources have claimed while contradicting what the largest investigations into Ruby have found (i.e. Ruby was not a member of organized crime anywhere but that he was acquainted with a lot of underworld figures[24]).
If an editor wanted to use this material in the Jack Ruby or Assassination of John F. Kennedy articles, I am assuming it would be considered to be from a fringe source and treated as such. In this context, how do we evaluate that exact same source for potential use in the Joseph Civello article? Thanks! -Location (talk) 21:32, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- Wow, this is a really good question. I think I would have trouble taking anything seriously that he writes about history if this is the quality of his scholarship. But we editors really don't get to have an opinion. So I think we would need to move to the next generation of researchers who hopefully are evaluating his work. What do they say about this person who would appear to the public to be on the same equality level. In the world of psychics we have Dr. Gary Schwartz who has "tested" all kinds of people who claim to be psychic, his testing is so flawed that although he has a PhD and is tenured at his University, the rest of the scientific community thinks he is a joke. Though when I went to look for evidence of this, I find little. But because of his lack of methodology I personally would not rely on his scholarship, though it might be difficult to back that up if we are talking about using him on an article here on Wikipedia concerning psychics. I'm interested in others thoughts. Sgerbic (talk) 22:13, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
- On the positive side, both the general editor of the series, Charles Reagan, and the volume editor, Amy Louise Wood, appear to be respectable scholars of southern US history. If Kurtz's work were solely complete crankery, you would hope that they would not have invited him to write an entry; if he had written a completely bunk entry you would hope that they would have not included it. (Indeed, even Kurtz's work on the JFK assassination seems to have recieved reviews in scholarly journals which don't immediately dismiss it as complete crankery - I don't have full text access, but both Conkin's review in the Journal of Southern History and Turner in the Journal of American History don't seem to be dismissing him completely out of hand.
- On the other hand, you can always use your editorial discretion to not use a source that you don't find convincing; until another editor makes the case that it's important to include you don't have to use any given source! Especially if that source is claiming things which you believe are contrary to the academic consensus! Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 13:02, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Sgerbic and Caeciliusinhorto-public: Thanks for the feedback. I agree that the editors of the series and book, Wilson and Wood, are respectable scholars, and that is part of what makes it difficult to evaluate this scholar.
- While I agree with Kurtz that "little is known about the Dallas family of Joseph Civello", I think I would have trouble justifying to another editor that statements in one paragraph of his article should be considered reliable, but statements in another paragraph should not. As far as finding alternative sourcing for the article, the difficulty I am having is that most reliable sources of information for Civello seem to be primary sources, but almost all of the secondary sources that discuss him either do so in the context of the JFK-was-killed-by-the-mob conspiracy theories (this is Kurtz) or they are books/websites about organized crime who have gotten their information about him from the conspiracy books (this also appears to be Kurtz). -Location (talk) 17:29, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
opinion pieces published by the AP?
I was summoned by the bot to an RfC where one of the arguments is based on this. Anyone know more about the extent to which the AP publishes political opinion pieces like this (without marking them as such)? There's no opinion section at the top of apnews.com, and while I know the style of say, style/entertainment sections necessarily involve a degree of opinion, I guess I was under the impression they didn't get into this kind of thing (Black Lives Matter "rejecting the perfection of God and Jesus" and whatnot). I mean to read it, it's obviously an opinion piece, but I'm curious what other folks have seen. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:49, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- I do agree it looks like an opinion piece. I'm not entirely sure where it's categorized. The author is not your usual pundit type though. Long time historian and a retired PoliSci professor, he's extremely widely published in newspapers for historical perspectives mostly in the Texas area but also as far afield as Connecticut and has over a dozen books mostly focused on Texas history. It's an interesting find. --(loopback) ping/whereis 14:13, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- It's an opinion piece, there's no doubt there, also the same author has other AP articles (example) that run in a similar vein and are also opinion pieces. I also hadn't realised that AP published opinion pieces such as this. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:26, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- The AP might occasionally fail to label obvious opinion pieces as opinion pieces. That's bound to happen when the AP is producing such a large volume of content; I've seen organizations like The Guardian and the religion section of The Washington Post make this sort of mistake before. WP:REPUTABLE asks editors to exercise
common sense
when evaluating sources, and it's very clear that the particular piece you're bringing here is an essay expressing the opinion of the author, so common sense dictates that we should treat it like an opinion piece. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 15:03, 16 February 2023 (UTC) - The AP has historically allowed a bit looser standards when it comes to religion (it is a field largely devoid of facts in the traditional news sense after all, one who sets out to fact check the Bible is in for a world of pain). I wonder if this piece didn't start on the religion side rather than the politics side. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:49, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- An opinion piece is as an opinion piece does. If it quacks like an opinion piece and it walks like an opinion piece, that's what it is. It also has no bearing on the general reliability of the AP. Treat that one article as an opinion piece, and that's all you need to do. --Jayron32 16:44, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yup, but I didn't ask what to do with that case; I asked for information/insight about AP practices, their website's organization, and the extent of this phenomenon. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:11, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- As the ever-reliable Poynter points out, it is quite routine for otherwise-reliable sources to improperly or insufficiently mark opinion pieces. I've also been seeing some articles that combine both news and opinion (not by the AP, just in general by WP:RS), though that's thankfully rare. As long as editors know to exercise proper judgment, and attribute whatever should be attributed, there's no problem. DFlhb (talk) 21:35, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- At least in the past, I know that we have considered a failure to properly separate news and opinion to be an indicator of unreliability... though it would be admittedly hard to apply this to the AP (partially because reliability is a combination of factors of which that is just one.) But it's definitely not a good look. --Aquillion (talk) 04:30, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- I’ve never noticed this kind of opinion piece on AP before. I can’t work out which section it appears in. It’s very egregious that it’s not clearly labelled as opinion, so we might need to watch out for this. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:25, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Part of the confusion may be simply computer or human error. I've noticed that archived news articles, be they native or syndicated, often lose some key information and formatting over time, either from link rot, bad OCR scans, or just poor digital maintenance. For instance, digitized historic New York Times articles frequently have mangled titles that may omit the byline/dateline, and only subscribers with access to actual page scans can see the full context (e.g. whether something is clearly placed on an Opinion page). Sometimes articles on the AP website seem to be only partial versions of syndicated versions seen elsewhere in print. I think editors should always be aware that what they are seeing on a screen may not be exactly the whole truth (see also scanned journal articles from the 1920s whose online DOI says "published 1 Jan 2011" because that's maybe the month/year it was digitized). There is a Texas based syndicated columnist named Robin Montgomery who appears to write on religion and history, maybe one of his articles got filed in the AP website, either on purpose or by mistake (thanks, AI!). Glad to see people using their brains here in recognizing opinion from news in the absence of an explicit "OPINION" stamp. --Animalparty! (talk) 03:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- My best guess would be some kind of CRM (database) migration. Article may have been prominently labelled opinion, but some metadata got lost in the transfer. I'll note that its URL was never archived before the last few days, and it's common for CRM migrations to involve URL moves. DFlhb (talk) 11:19, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Congressional Quarterly and Roll Call: Reliability and Trade Publication Status
Following an AFD discussion, I'm seeking consensus and a WP:RSP listing for Congressional Quarterly and Roll Call, two related U.S. political newspapers. It seems clear from their pedigree and standing that they're generally reliable sources, but there was disagreement among editors of whether they constituted "trade publications" and are thus ineligible to be used to establish notability per WP:ORGIND. QuintinK (talk) 15:47, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Just a note that Congressional Quarterly wasn't mentioned at all in the AFD, let alone the subject of a disagreement. The other source mentioned in that discussion is The Hill, not Congressional Quarterly. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:52, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- No, under no reasonable definition of the term, are they trade publications. They just aren't. They are specialist journals, for sure, but that doesn't mean they are trade publications. That's just silly. Politics is not a trade or an industry, it's a matter of public interest. Journals that focus on politics aren't trade publications. Regarding RSP listing; are these sources frequently discussed and is their use frequently under contention? I mean, one person in one AFD making one claim does not a controversial source make. I see no reason to list them if they are not frequently brought up for their reliability. This includes Roll Call, CQ, and The Hill. These are perfectly reliable sources for all purposes, full stop. They also don't need to be listed at RSP as there is no evidence anyone is questioning these.--Jayron32 16:42, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Roll Call seems to sponsor the Congressional Baseball Game, so it's not clear to me that it's not generally independent for items related to that specific event, nor is it currently independent from anything related to FiscalNote (its owner), but I don't think they're trade publications in the sense of something like Supermarket news.
- The current form of Congressional Quarterly feels more like a business intelligence source rather than a traditional news source. There are going to be additional considerations with respect to WP:ORGIND that apply for BI sources, since they have a tendency to regurgitate press releases with relative frequency. But, if there is original reporting from CQ, then I don't see any independence issues per se that are more broad than "it's not independent of organizations substantially owned by their parent company/projects of a sister organization". — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 17:25, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
The Times, NYT, British media and LGBT
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
With the concerning reporting coming from The Times, some other British media, as well as American newspaper The New York Times about the killing of Brianna Ghey (where The Times "corrected" their story by misgendering Ghey), I hope we can reconsider some of those newspapers as reliable sources (but considering we still have FOX News as reliable in any capacity, I doubt it). LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 20:21, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don't think 1 single incident would be enough to make The Times and NYT completely unreliable (NYT isn't even British, it's American) ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 20:25, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- You failed to mention the part of that source that states, referring to The Times, "The article was later amended again to restore the word 'girl' and to remove Ghey’s deadname." EddieHugh (talk) 20:40, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- @EddieHugh The Times shouldn't have "corrected" the article to deadname her in the first place. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 20:42, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm sure The Times's "apology for the previous apology" will be discussed at some length the next time we have reason to evaluate that source's POV amd reliability on transgender issues. Newimpartial (talk) 20:46, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- The Pink News article also doesn't say that Ghey was 'misgendered' ("remove the word 'girl'" isn't equal to 'use the word "boy"' or not mentioning gender). And the second version of The Times article doesn't do that either (it repeatedly and consistenly uses "her"). EddieHugh (talk) 20:59, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Deadnaming is a form of misgendering. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 21:01, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- It can be, but in this instance the source also used "her" consistently, so this looks like whoever made the changes didn't think it through, and a few hours later they were corrected. So, not desirable for anyone, but not as reprehensible as I thought from your initial post – hence my replies, to add some of the detail for others reading here. EddieHugh (talk) 21:28, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Still, saying she was a girl then purposefully updating the article to call her a "transgender teenager" instead (as if "transgender girl" is so difficult to type) and releasing her deadname without reason speaks wonders to the Times' general editorial line on trans people. The reason its called a "deadname" originally stemmed from the fear of being recorded under the wrong name in death when you weren't around to do anything about it. The Times choosing to deliberately reveal the deadname of a dead 16 year old and not refer to her as a girl, after they'd already published the piece, is downright evil. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:43, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- It can be, but in this instance the source also used "her" consistently, so this looks like whoever made the changes didn't think it through, and a few hours later they were corrected. So, not desirable for anyone, but not as reprehensible as I thought from your initial post – hence my replies, to add some of the detail for others reading here. EddieHugh (talk) 21:28, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Deadnaming is a form of misgendering. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 21:01, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- The Pink News article also doesn't say that Ghey was 'misgendered' ("remove the word 'girl'" isn't equal to 'use the word "boy"' or not mentioning gender). And the second version of The Times article doesn't do that either (it repeatedly and consistenly uses "her"). EddieHugh (talk) 20:59, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm sure The Times's "apology for the previous apology" will be discussed at some length the next time we have reason to evaluate that source's POV amd reliability on transgender issues. Newimpartial (talk) 20:46, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- @EddieHugh The Times shouldn't have "corrected" the article to deadname her in the first place. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 20:42, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- You failed to mention the part of that source that states, referring to The Times, "The article was later amended again to restore the word 'girl' and to remove Ghey’s deadname." EddieHugh (talk) 20:40, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- One instance that was corrected doesn't make a source unreliable. To see what unreliable is see the Daily Mails coverage of the killing, which is deeply unpleasant. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:48, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- For context on the NYT, here is an article discussing the recent complaints against them. Here is an article that provides some more in-depth criticisms as opposed to just reporting on them. Long story short, ~200 NYT contributors signed an open letter condemning their coverage of transgender people/healthcare. GLAAD and 100+ LGBT organizations/advocates (including even WPATH, PFLAG, and the Human Rights Campaign) also issued a statement condemning their coverage. The criticisms include: platforming anti-trans groups and conversion therapy organizations like Genspect (despite being warned about their history of anti-trans activism and pseudoscience), muddying the waters on the safety of trans healthcare and misrepresenting the science (forcing WPATH to publish a multiple page response detailing how much they got wrong in just one article), their lack of trans people in the opinion and news departments, and their pathologizing terms for trans people. In short, the NYT's articles on trans people/topics should probably be taken with a tablespoon of salt. In terms of healthcare, WP:MEDRS probably already covers that. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:30, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Close There are no factual errors for this board to assess. Sources are under no obligation to follow WP:DEADNAME, a wikipedia policy. Slywriter (talk)
- There are factual errors at least in the case of the NYT. Should that be discussed here or would it be better in a section dedicated to their coverage specifically? TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:02, 16 February 2023 (UTC)TheTranarchist
- If you think they rise to the level of needing RSN input, a new section with specifics would be best. This is generic, broad-brushed and already gone down a rabbit hole.
- With that, not sure why a one-off of NYT botched a story would require anything more than discussion on article talk page. As much as I'd enjoy seeing all newspapers barred from being used as sources for recent events, I doubt this would rise to gaining consesua to making NYT generally unreliable.Slywriter (talk) 22:13, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- It's more of a pattern of botching stories rather than a one-off, and I'd say it should still be considered generally reliable but with a caveat noting their coverage of trans topics specifically. @LilianaUwU, would you mind creating the section?
- If created I'll also do an analysis of how their articles have been cited on WP to see the extent to which it's a problem. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:24, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- @TheTranarchist I'm assuming you want me to create a RfC? LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 22:50, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes please! TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 23:22, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- @TheTranarchist I'm assuming you want me to create a RfC? LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 22:50, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- There are factual errors at least in the case of the NYT. Should that be discussed here or would it be better in a section dedicated to their coverage specifically? TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:02, 16 February 2023 (UTC)TheTranarchist
- We just had a giant RfC on The Times (of London) in this context, and no uncorrected errors of material fact are being alleged in this thread, so I see no need to attempt to re-litigate the discussion with respect to the UK newspaper of record. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 22:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- If a
UK newspaper of record
decides to misgender and deadname a murder victim - and then changes its mind - I don’t expect other editors to be as tolerant of that as you are (in the nextgiant RfC
). The problem with The Times on trans issues isn't that it makesuncorrected errors of material fact
, it is that it presents selective reporting in service of its avowed editorial aims, including the marginalization of trans people and the reversal of their rights and access to health services. You may not see this as a problem - and it isn't a problem WP:RSN is well-equipped to deal with - but I dare say many other editors do see it as a problem. Newimpartial (talk) 22:44, 16 February 2023 (UTC)- I should probably stay out of this, but I can't let "its avowed editorial aims, including the marginalization of trans people and the reversal of their rights and access to health services" slide by – where has The Times stated ("avowed") that these are among its editorial aims? EddieHugh (talk) 22:52, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- According to its editorial articles, yes. This is also a conclusion reached within peer-reviewed scholarship. Newimpartial (talk) 22:53, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- "its avowed editorial aims" doesn't mean that others think that those are its aims; it means that The Times itself has stated that. I doubt that it has done that. If it has, please provide full citations. EddieHugh (talk) 23:02, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- This article sets out The Times's view on transgender health in fairly clear terms, I should think. Newimpartial (talk) 23:11, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- That's The Sunday Times, but regardless, I see no statement of editorial aims there. Some of its principles are mentioned here, for example. EddieHugh (talk) 23:33, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- To be clear, when I say
their avowed aims
, I mean the objectives pursued directly in their editorial line, not the fluff they insert in an about page. So fiscal prudence and border security might be some of the other "avowed aims" (declared editorial objectives) for which The Times advocates more or less consistently. Newimpartial (talk) 23:41, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- To be clear, when I say
- That's The Sunday Times, but regardless, I see no statement of editorial aims there. Some of its principles are mentioned here, for example. EddieHugh (talk) 23:33, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- This article sets out The Times's view on transgender health in fairly clear terms, I should think. Newimpartial (talk) 23:11, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- "its avowed editorial aims" doesn't mean that others think that those are its aims; it means that The Times itself has stated that. I doubt that it has done that. If it has, please provide full citations. EddieHugh (talk) 23:02, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- According to its editorial articles, yes. This is also a conclusion reached within peer-reviewed scholarship. Newimpartial (talk) 22:53, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- If there are no issues with the factual accuracy of the content in The Times, and the only issue that editors take is the way that The Times goes about characterizing public disputes, that's a complaint about bias, but, as the relevant guideline goes...
reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject.
The same guideline also notes that[w]hen dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering.
If there is evidence of it lacking editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and/or editorial independence, the last RfC would have been a great place to make those arguments. And some did make them, but the small amounts of evidence presented regarding the publication's alleged failures in fact-checking have been plainly unconvincing to the community writ large, nobody seems to think that The Times lacks editorial independence, and The Times has a generally strong and robust system of editorial oversight. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:25, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- I should probably stay out of this, but I can't let "its avowed editorial aims, including the marginalization of trans people and the reversal of their rights and access to health services" slide by – where has The Times stated ("avowed") that these are among its editorial aims? EddieHugh (talk) 22:52, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, I remember that RfC. It was flawed and sprung upon those of us who were preparing for such an RfC early. While the Times might be a newspaper of record on some topics, it is very much not so for trans and non-binary topics.
- On the specific issue of Brianna Ghey, The Times was one of only two UK newspapers to make the choice to deliberately misgender Ghey, the other was The Daily Mail. While the editorial bias of The Times has lead to heavily slanted and inaccurate coverage, this choice to deadname a teen who had just been killed was a new low. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:48, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Perhaps this discussion should mainly be about whether these newspapers are reliable with regards to the narrow topic area of gender. Taking the New York Times as an example, I don't think there is ever going to be consensus that it is anything other than reliable in its coverage of local or national topics (e.g. I doubt its coverage of gender topics has anything to do with its coverage of topics such as subway construction). However, I do think it would be a good idea to host an RFC on whether these newspapers' coverage of gender topics is reliable. – Epicgenius (talk) 23:19, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- We had one... three months ago. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 23:29, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, definitely too soon to revisit that (The Economist was also covered). EddieHugh (talk) 23:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- As was The Telegraph. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:00, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, definitely too soon to revisit that (The Economist was also covered). EddieHugh (talk) 23:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Perhaps this discussion should mainly be about whether these newspapers are reliable with regards to the narrow topic area of gender.
Yes, that was actually the RfC I was preparing for back in November (alas recovery from laser eye surgery has held me back from completing the prep work). The unreliability of sources like The Times and Daily Telegraph is focused almost entirely upon their trans and non-binary content, though recently they've also been branching out into more generalised anti-LGBT+ content.- Alas because the November RfC was launched prematurely to say the least, and in general we don't revisit past RfCs until at least 6 to 12 months has passed since the last one, and because collating and presenting a set of examples of unreliable coverage alongside the context for why the examples are so bad such that editors unfamiliar with GENSEX content can understand why these papers are not reliable on this topic, I'm not hopeful for any RfC along even those narrow lines to have any chance of success prior to at least June if not November.
- Even just collating and presenting the set of examples is incredibly time consuming. When considering just The Times and Telegraph, both papers have been publishing at least one anti-trans article, per day, since 2019/20. I don't have the exact figures to hand at the moment, but in the last year alone The Times has published over 1000 anti-trans articles. It's not just a case of "they've published some bad articles", they're publishing hundreds of bad and misleading articles. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:35, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- We had one... three months ago. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 23:29, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Perhaps this discussion should mainly be about whether these newspapers are reliable with regards to the narrow topic area of gender. Taking the New York Times as an example, I don't think there is ever going to be consensus that it is anything other than reliable in its coverage of local or national topics (e.g. I doubt its coverage of gender topics has anything to do with its coverage of topics such as subway construction). However, I do think it would be a good idea to host an RFC on whether these newspapers' coverage of gender topics is reliable. – Epicgenius (talk) 23:19, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- If a
I'm going to try to comment a second time here without being censored. The notion that The Times or The New York Times aren't reliable because they mentioned someone's former name is absurd and at odds with the central mission of this project, which is to assemble verifiable facts. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:28, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- You aren't being censored, publicizing the deadname of a dead trans girl is a shitty thing to do that speaks to a basic lack of respect for trans people, whether you or the Times does it, especially when she was never notable under that name. Explicitly stating her deadname had no bearing on the discussion and was just cruel. I know you seem to think that deadnaming and misgendering living trans kids is okay, but apparently even in death you can't respect them. At least on WP, we don't allow that. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 00:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Jweiss11 The reason why it's called a deadname is because of
the fear of being recorded under the wrong name in death when you weren't around to do anything about it
, to quote @TheTranarchist, which is exactly what happened in The Times. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 00:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)- Yes, that's the very definition of censoring. While I agree that it would be rude to call a transgender person their former name to their face, in the context of what we are doing here, assembling facts about notable topics, the idea that you can't even mention a birth name in a meta-level discussion is absurd. We all ought to be able to decouple the horror of what happened to this apparent murder victim from our efforts to discuss the facts of the topic. That some some of us may be applying this sort confused logic in how we determine reliable sources could be utterly crippling for Wikipedia. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Jweiss11 Not publicizing a dead trans woman's name is not censorship, it's basic decency. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 00:54, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- LilianaUwU, I would recommend you revisit the definition of censorship. It applies even to things we would all consider indecent. Also, comments on a Wikipedia administrative discussion board qualify as publicity? Jweiss11 (talk) 00:58, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- It's called WP:Advocacy gone wild, but the community has apparently endorsed it, so yes, you can be censored. The fact that we are even discussing a source because of it's ideological leanings being at odds with the societal norms that Wikipedia has established for itself with no real evidence they published a falsehood should tell you how far from the core mission we have strayed on this one issue. Slywriter (talk) 01:01, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Slywriter, are you disagreeing with the frequently-reiterated community consensus that for WP to include non-notable deadnames is a WP:BLP issue? Or with the scope of application of BLP policy that includes recently deceased people, as well as Talk pages? Or are you objecting to both things? Newimpartial (talk) 01:19, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- When we are discussing a sources reliability because the source violated WP:DEADNAME, policy they are clearly not bound to, we have gone too far. When labeling a source "Anti-Trans" and then trying to remove it from use on Wikipedia on trans topics for that reason, we have gone too far. It's one thing to ask for decency and respect in our interactions among ourselves and to try our best to limit harm, but when it affects sourcing because people don't like it, that's gone too far. Sensitivities of editors and subjects should play zero part in our editing. Republicans don't like being called far-right. Its offensive to many who are not far-right. I am personally offended anytime someone use cismale as I am a male without qualification and don't see why someone should force their word-coice upon me. I also don't advocate on wikipedia to limit use of far-right or ban use of cis because those are distractions from the core mission and my sensitivities should play no part in editing. Slywriter (talk) 01:52, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Slywriter, are you disagreeing with the frequently-reiterated community consensus that for WP to include non-notable deadnames is a WP:BLP issue? Or with the scope of application of BLP policy that includes recently deceased people, as well as Talk pages? Or are you objecting to both things? Newimpartial (talk) 01:19, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Jweiss11, when you cry
censorship
, are you disagreeing with the frequently-reiterated community consensus that for WP to include non-notable deadnames is a WP:BLP issue? Or with the scope of application of BLP policy that inclides the recently deceased, as well as Talk pages? Or are you objecting to both things? Newimpartial (talk) 01:20, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- It's called WP:Advocacy gone wild, but the community has apparently endorsed it, so yes, you can be censored. The fact that we are even discussing a source because of it's ideological leanings being at odds with the societal norms that Wikipedia has established for itself with no real evidence they published a falsehood should tell you how far from the core mission we have strayed on this one issue. Slywriter (talk) 01:01, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- LilianaUwU, I would recommend you revisit the definition of censorship. It applies even to things we would all consider indecent. Also, comments on a Wikipedia administrative discussion board qualify as publicity? Jweiss11 (talk) 00:58, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- You're obviously not being censored, as you've been more than happy to repeatedly express your opinion misgendering and deadnaming are fine and trans kids should just have to put up with it. Wikipedia doesn't allow doxxing or slurs, that's not censorship it's common decency. It's rude to call a trans person a deadname to their face or to needlessly reveal their deadname to others who don't know it. You indeed publicized it. It had absolutely no bearing on the discussion and you chose to include it anyways - your rant could have worked just as well and conveyed approximately the same level of callousness if you hadn't explicitly stated it. That the Times chose to publicize the deadname of a murdered trans girl for shits and giggles shows they have little concern for fair reporting on transgender people. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 01:03, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Jweiss11 Not publicizing a dead trans woman's name is not censorship, it's basic decency. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 00:54, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, that's the very definition of censoring. While I agree that it would be rude to call a transgender person their former name to their face, in the context of what we are doing here, assembling facts about notable topics, the idea that you can't even mention a birth name in a meta-level discussion is absurd. We all ought to be able to decouple the horror of what happened to this apparent murder victim from our efforts to discuss the facts of the topic. That some some of us may be applying this sort confused logic in how we determine reliable sources could be utterly crippling for Wikipedia. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
:::Best put diffs up for such an extreme claim. Otherwise, retract because I uphold policies I disagree with every day, while also expressing the accurate fact that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a place to change the world. ::::Slywriter (talk) 01:11, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- You want us to link to the diff where Jweiss used Brianna's deadname, which has been oversighted (check the page history) and that no-one outside of those with the Oversight role can actually read? Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:14, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- From the placement of this comment, Slywriter, it appears to be a reply to TheTranarchist, but from the indent level it looks like a reply to Jweiss11. In either case, however, the comment you are replying to isn't about you or your actions so your call for diffs and your defense of your actions elsewhere in the project seem, ahem, misplaced. Newimpartial (talk) 01:31, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Sticken and thanks to both of you. Misaligned in my head and was upset an editor I've interacted quite well these last few days had an issue with me. Slywriter (talk) 01:52, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Were it not for The Times and Daily Mail deliberately choosing to publish Brianna's deadname, would anyone outside of her family, friends, and possibly local community actually known it?
- There is a reason why we have the MOS:DEADNAME guideline when it comes to handling the deadnames of trans and non-binary people who were either notable or not notable prior to their transitions. That guideline clearly states
If a living transgender or non-binary person was not notable under a former name (a deadname), it should not be included in any page (including lists, redirects, disambiguation pages, category names, templates, etc.), even in quotations, even if reliable sourcing exists. Treat the pre-notability name as a privacy interest separate from (and often greater than) the person's current name.
(links from original text). - For Brianna, sadly she was not notable (in the GNG sense) prior to her death, and the article we have on her is focused on her killing (which is notable in the GNG sense). The privacy protections from our BLP policy however applies to the limited amount of biographical content we have on her, even in death. It is not censoring to remove or suppress content from any page that egregiously breaches Wikipedia policy. The WP:REVDEL policy states plainly what circumstances content can be either redacted (so that only administrators can view it) or suppressed (so that only those with the Oversight role can view it), and this was one of those circumstances. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:09, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- No disagreement with any of this, except it's not a reason to exclude a source from Wikipedia. They didn't lie. They said something we don't like here. That's not actionable. Slywriter (talk) 01:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- I was not aware that the MOS applied to talk and discussion pages such as this—to the point that oversighting would be deployed. Wow. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:23, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Jweiss11 Privacy violations against a deceased person isn't just a MOS guideline. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 01:24, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not the MOS. It's a WP:BLPPRIVACY/WP:BLPNAME issue. BLP apples to any edit about a living or recently deceased person, on any page, anywhere on enwiki. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:25, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- How is it a privacy violation if it's public information as it was published by mainstream news sources (e.g. https://archive.is/PZRQO)? Jweiss11 (talk) 01:31, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Rather than WIKILAWYERING over whether it is a privacy violation, can you concede that it is a BLP violation? Otherwise it looks as though we are headed to WP:ARE. Newimpartial (talk) 01:34, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Per BLPNAME
When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated
. Temporary publication in one source we consider reliable (The Times), and one we consider unreliable (Daily Mail) is not "widely disseminated". - Also like the last time, you could have easily asked this question without linking to the archive of the source, just as how I'm not linking to archives of The Daily Mail's article that also contains the deadname. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:37, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- How is it a privacy violation if it's public information as it was published by mainstream news sources (e.g. https://archive.is/PZRQO)? Jweiss11 (talk) 01:31, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- In isolation it's potentially a reason to exclude the specific article, or archived versions of it, from Wikipedia. But that's not what this tangent discussion is about. This tangent seems to mostly be about why Jweiss11 believes they were censored, despite it being a very clear privacy violation of a recently deceased person. Jweiss11 could have made the same point about about The Times without any need to mention Brianna's deadname. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:23, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- The irony here is that Jweiss11, in their contributions, is providing a rationale for this filing that did not exist ab initio. Normally we use source reliability as a shortcut to assess the balance of coverage and what counts as
widely distributed
information. By drawing attention the clash between what The Times (and The Daily Mail) have chosen to publish and Wikipedia's norms, Jweiss has given reason to question whether The Times should be considered in assessing DUE inclusion of content, regardless of whether its reporting meets minimal standards of facticity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Newimpartial (talk • contribs) 01:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- The irony here is that Jweiss11, in their contributions, is providing a rationale for this filing that did not exist ab initio. Normally we use source reliability as a shortcut to assess the balance of coverage and what counts as
- I was not aware that the MOS applied to talk and discussion pages such as this—to the point that oversighting would be deployed. Wow. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:23, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- No disagreement with any of this, except it's not a reason to exclude a source from Wikipedia. They didn't lie. They said something we don't like here. That's not actionable. Slywriter (talk) 01:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
RFC: Scientific Reports
Which of the following best describes Scientific Reports?
- Option 1: Generally reliable
- Option 2: Additional considerations apply
- Option 3: Generally unreliable
- Option 4: Deprecate
Previous discussions: [25].Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:57, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Survey
- Option 2 Whether or not a paper from SciRep should be used is very field and author dependent. While undoubtedly a lot of good and valid research is published there, so is a lot of dubious stuff, more so than other journals in the SpringerNature portfolio. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:57, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2: many scholarly articles should be given little weight on Wikipedia anyways, regardless of publisher or reliability, as primary sources (WP:PSTS). A primary article that describes a new species, like this one, is reliable enough to show the species has been validly published, even if subsequent taxonomists disagree or reclassify it. But a research paper in the same journal that seeks to upend an existing classification scheme of a family or phylum based on a newly sequenced blip of RNA should be weighted accordingly with other sources. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:13, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 3, though some things published there may be usable via WP:SELFPUB. It is reasonably clear from its history that it exerts practically no editorial controls whatsoever; therefore it is a textbook non-WP:RS and publication there will never lend any iota of reliability. I can understand people stating that this is 2 (because sometimes highly-regarded experts do publish things through it, which can be used via WP:SELFPUB) but my concern is that our ratings are generally considered to be for the source itself - SELFPUB is a separate consideration that allows certain things to be used regardless of the reliability of the venue they were published in, not something that changes the fundamental unreliability of a journal with essentially no editorial controls. And the fairly rigid structure WP:RSP has evolved into could mean that a "yellow" rating there would lead to people arguing that publication there sometimes lends reputability, or that it is disputed whether it lends inherent reliability. It never does, not ever, which means that option 3 is the best choice with the caveat that things by established experts can be used as normal via SELFPUB (true in general for things published in non-RSes) - essentially, anyone who wants to use a paper from there has to start from the presumption that it is unreliable and construct a SELFPUB argument otherwise on a case-by-case basis. --Aquillion (talk) 04:28, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 2 Should be assessed on an article-by-article basis. Some may be useful as primary sources alongside secondary sources that themselves reference material published there, but for the most part we should not be using scientific papers without a supporting secondary source that puts the primary research into context. It's probably fine for linking in cases where we reference the material in conjunction with its discussion in secondary sources, but like ALL scientific journals, per WP:PRIMARY, "Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so." --Jayron32 13:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 3 Misusing primary sources is already rampant on wikipedia. The journal has a checkered history, so I agree with Aquillion that articles should basically be treated as self published. Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 21:03, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 3 Primary sources like research papers should only be used with special care to begin with, and this journal fails the use-with-caution standard. Aiming for quantity indiscriminate of field is a big red flag. Peer review requires trustworthy subject-specific expert review, which is dubious when the journal as a whole disregards subject specialization. Our article Scientific Reports appears to indicate the quantity-over-quality approach bearing poor fruit. Note that this should not count against any paper published there, surely much of that work is fine. It just means publication in Scientific Reports adds little to any other publication or authority the work may otherwise have. Alsee (talk) 22:28, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- I suppose given that as of 2020 SciRep was publishing 7,500-10,000 papers every year, is looking at the raw number of controversies an appropriate metric? Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:26, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
Discussion
- I'm not sure we have a color code for "quite frequently unreliable, but reliability can be established on a case-by-case basis in fairly standard ways". The various arguments for 2 and 3 that are currently up there seem to agree to a large extent on how the journal ought to be treated in practice; the difference is how to translate that into suitable Wikipedia jargon. XOR'easter (talk) 16:36, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Unless Sci Rep has started publishing review articles, is this more of a "people using primary sources when they shouldn't" problem? Red Fiona (talk) 00:09, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
The Daily Beast and Mediaite for extraordinary claim in a BLP
Regarding edits to Julie Banderas making an extraordinary claim about a living person. The first edit [26] used the The Daily Mail, which is not a reliable source per WP:RSP, and so the edit was reverted.
The claim was restored [27] citing Mediaite and The Daily Beast.
WP:RSP says this about Mediaite:
There is some consensus that Mediaite is only marginally reliable, and should be avoided where better sources are available. Editors consider the source to inappropriately blur news and opinion, and due weight should be considered if no other reliable sources support a given statement.
and this about The Daily Beast:
There is no consensus on the reliability of The Daily Beast. Most editors consider The Daily Beast a biased or opinionated source. Some editors advise particular caution when using this source for controversial statements of fact related to living persons.
Is this sufficient reliable sourcing for the claim being made? — Archer1234 (t·c) 00:40, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- No they shouldn't and they definitely shouldn't be hidden behind "it was published" without the who plays published. Also, if no one else covering the incident, doubt it is WP:DUE. Slywriter (talk) 01:04, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- These sources definitely shouldn't be used for any BLP claims. I'm skeptical that we should be using them at all given that they're basically tabloids. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:00, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- No, these sources should not be used for extraordinary or contested claims about living persons. Find a better source or take it out of the article. --Jayron32 13:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Regardless of sourcing, her husband is not a public figure, and her article cannot contain allegations of crimes potentially committed by him, per WP:BLPCRIME. It's also clear that these sources can't be used. DFlhb (talk) 14:19, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
The Wire (Indian Publication) and Meta Controversy
With the increasing use of The Wire as a source for citation for various articles, we should assess The Wire as a reliable source for Wikipedia. Attached are some links below to go over the controversy.
Meta's Report SpunkyGeek (talk) 03:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm a little confused here. Is there any reason anyone on this planet should believe anything Meta says? I mean, come on.
- If there's more to this, we certainly need a much better source than Meta. :bloodofox: (talk) 03:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Are there other issues with Wire that require an assessment of their use on Wikipedia? Wire-Meta seems premature for the community to discuss as even the tech community appears to be divided/confused as to what's going on, per the scroll source. Slywriter (talk) 04:15, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- The Wire has conceded that there was a breach of moral conduct. The printed story seemed politically motivated because it was pursued with fabricated evidence.
- Hence the question that the story it publishes is reliable enough to cite as a source.
- https://thewire.in/media/the-wire-editorial-to-our-readers-an-apology-and-a-promise
- https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/10/27/the-wire-issues-apology-cites-deception-by-a-member-of-our-meta-investigation-team SpunkyGeek (talk) 04:55, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- We obviously can't just take the fact that Meta itself (as a primary source) disputes the Wire's coverage as evidence that there's some problem the Wire is unreliable; this, at least, is an obvious WP:MANDY situation - if the simple fact that the subject of a piece denied things was enough to render a source unreliable, no source that reports on anything controversial could be reliable. And even if there was secondary coverage saying that the Wire got this particular thing wrong (and the Scroll article - which isn't particularly impressive as a source - says no such thing, it just reports competing claims), that wouldn't necessarily impact their status as a WP:RS, because a source's reliability is based on its overall
reputation for fact-checking and accuracy
and not one particular incident. Do you have any reason to think that the Wire's overall reputation has been harmed by this, as opposed to them just saying some things that Meta disputes? --Aquillion (talk) 04:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)- Agreed we cannot take Meta's statement as the truth. However, the issue is that The Wire conceded that there was a breach of conduct from one of their employees (fabricating the evidence). Reporting something wrong and fabricating something to prove a story are different things. SpunkyGeek (talk) 04:59, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- It's not just meta saying things; it's The Wire fabricating things and destroying their reputation. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 20:32, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Is there any indication (ideally from a reliable source) that we should consider this to be more than a deplorable, yet individual incident? Der Spiegel is by consnesus generally reliable, inspite of the mass fabrications by Claas Relotius. –Austronesier (talk) 06:14, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Austronesier: See The Economist, which notes that The Wire destroyed its reputation in this whole affair. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 20:33, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Still reliable They did a story and took it back with a notice. There is nothing wrong with that. Capitals00 (talk) 06:21, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- The Economist provides credible information that there was an intentional breach of journalistic morals (fabricating evidence). SpunkyGeek (talk) 22:10, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Every source screws up at least once. It's only the response to the screw up and the pattern of behavior that matters, not a singular event. The Wire's response seems appropriate as to what a reliable source does when one of its employees engages in bad practices; this is a sign that they are reliable, not the other way around. --Jayron32 13:45, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
DeprecateGenerally unreliable Poorly worded opening post, which lacks any background. The issue is not that Meta disputed their report. MANDY is horribly misapplied here. The issue isn't that they made a "mistake", either, or that they were hoaxed by an employee (which happened to the most reliable outlets). The issue is that
- an employee completely fabricated evidence used in news stories that had multiple senior editors on the byline
- that this fabrication was so blatant that the most basic fact-checking mechanisms would have caught it
- that these senior editors publicly stood by the story, saying that it was based on two separate sources.
- that the outlet as a whole (not just the fired journalist) vociferously quadrupled-down on the fabricated story
- and that this "explosive" news story is exactly the kind of story that actual WP:RS would either jointly investigate with other WP:RS, or at least scrutinise very deeply. A good example is this competent joint reporting by The Guardian and other outlets.
- This fiasco could never have happened at a reputable outlet. The Wire's editors admit that they never bothered to verify the sourcing, despite public claims otherwise, and despite that being journalism 101. We judge reliability based on the level of editorial scrutiny. This story shows that The Wire has none, and firing the at-fault journalist does not address this. The Economist says The Wire fell for a "massive conspiracy", and blames The Wire's partisanship. WaPo notes growing questions about The Wire’s integrity and accuracy. The Editors Guild of India, their national journalistic association which had previously stood by The Wire, now calls out their circumvention of journalistic norms and checks.
- We simply cannot treat an outlet that lacks proper "journalistic norms and checks" as reliable. Let's not be lenient on this. DFlhb (talk) 15:22, 17 February 2023 (UTC) changing from Deprecate to GUNREL, since this isn't an RFC 22:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- India has no reputable outlets left, not a single one. The irony is that even after all of this The Wire is probably still the most reliable Indian news source... If we were to move to prohibit the use of every source as reliable or less we would be prohibiting the entire Indian media industry. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:58, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Only 194 to go.
- More seriously, thanks to those who have clarified this is more than a simple dispute. Based on the above fact set, I would support some form of downgrading of the Wire, though not sure we are in deprecate territory yet. Slywriter (talk) 18:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- I have to kindly disagree. India has many reputable sources and reliable outlets like The Indian Express, The Hindu, etc.
- Breach of journalistic ethics by The Wire in the above case contradicts your argument. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:37, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Agreed with most of the points presented.
- Will make sure more background is provided in the future. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- @DFlhb: For what it's worth, deprecation can only be achieved by formal RfC. I'm not sure that I would support outright deprecation (this is probably fine for run-of-the-mill facts) but I do think the question deserves discussion. Do you think that it would be wise for me to open up a standard four-option RfC below? — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 21:56, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- In that case, I'll change my !vote to "generally unreliable". It's indeed pretty reasonable for outlets to be declared GUNREL before being considered deprecated, so proper scrutiny can be applied for each "downgrade". Also, I'll likely have little time to contribute over the next few weeks, except watching my watchlist, so I won't be able to do the kind of more in-depth analysis I like to do in RFCs. DFlhb (talk) 22:14, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- India has no reputable outlets left, not a single one. The irony is that even after all of this The Wire is probably still the most reliable Indian news source... If we were to move to prohibit the use of every source as reliable or less we would be prohibiting the entire Indian media industry. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:58, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not generally reliable. Like Jayron32 says above,
the response to the screw up and the pattern of behavior
matters most when determining whether a news group has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. But, looking at the response to the screw up and the pattern of behavior here, I am struggling to draw lines between The Wire's response and that of Rolling Stone following its publication of A Rape on Campus; for various reasons including the lack of rigor in Rolling Stone's editorial standards for that topic area, we have WP:ROLLINGSTONEPOLITICS. DFlhb lays out a persuasive case that The Wire no longer possesses the reputation for fact-checking that generally reliable sources do, and the reputation of The Wire seems to have taken a hit inside of even the more reliable Indian newsrooms, following both its fabricated October reporting about Meta and its fabrications relating to Tek fog:CNN-News18 and NewsLaundry give a decently long summary of the extent to which evidence was fabricated for the October story regading Meta:- The Wire had alleged that an Indian government official more or less had the power to remove posts on Instagram. Meta denied the story.
- When Meta initially denied the story, The Wire posted fabricated screenshots stating that a user had "X-check" privileges. Meta responded by stating that the "X-check" privilege did not actually allow what The Wire said it did (previous reporting did not indicate that the privileges could actually be used to take down posts), and that the screenshots contained a fabricated url on a page designed to look as if it were something related to Instagram.
- After Meta responded saying that the url and website were deceptively fabricated and the privileges shown in the previous screenshots did not do what The Wire claimed, The Wire released a doctored video to back up its reporting that falsely claimed to show one of its journalists having access to Instagram's backend.
- Aside from all of this, both experts The Wire claimed it received access to an email from Meta executives, which the Meta executives denied. The Wire claimed that it had conducted checks with specific experts in cybersecurity to verify that the content of the email was legitimate, but those experts themselves say that they never talked to The Wire or that they explicitly refused to run the verification. The Economist, linked below, notes that the email was written in painfully broken English, which is not exactly expected of senior anglophone Meta executives, and this should have been a bright red flag for The Wire.
- Within two weeks of publication, the entire meat of the story had been publicly shown to have been a total and utter fabrication, and CNN-News18 notes that The Wire has been accused of fabricating evidence to validate its report after the fact.
- After this whole fiasco, The Economist wrote that The Wire had
shattered its own credibility
and criticized the Indian news website's editors for theirstupidity of choosing partisanship over process
. If you have access to The Economist, I hope you read the whole article, as it's truly eye-opening regarding this news source. The Washington Post, in their esposé on the issue, also tore into the doubling-down and tripling-down, suggesting that basically every attempt by The Wire to provide evidence just kept raising more questions in The Wire's reporting. - Next, let's look at a summary of the (under review but not officially retracted) Tek Fog story, which India Today correctly notes is
even more damaging than the Meta controversy
:- The Wire, in January 2022, published a story alleging that a secret app, called "Tek Fog" was allegedly being used by the BJP and by the Indian government to harass female journalists.
- The story was quickly picked up internationally, particularly in the opinion sections of Washington Post and Bloomberg, a academic blog post from London School of Economics, as well as nationally on Indian TV and among other Indian news organizations.
- At the time, the Editors Guild of India expressed significant concerns regarding the treatment of women journalists in India.
- After the whole Meta scandal, news organizations systematically re-evaluated the reliability of the Tek Fog reporting. In light of the battered reputation for fact-checking within The Wire's investigative reporting, the issued a statement saying that
serious questions on the veracity of their reporting
and called upon news groupsto resist the temptation of moving fast on sensitive stories, circumventing due journalistic norms and checks
. Bloomberg news even retracted(!) an opinion article on Tek Fog because it had been based on reporting from The Wire.
- Both of these stories alleged extremely serious violations—and wound up being of extremely questionable factual accuracy. The response to criticism of the October investigation into Meta was simply to double- and triple-down on the fabrications that they had published. And so too was their response to Tek Fog; until the Meta story completely and utterly fell apart in front of their very eyes ten months after they published the Tek Fog piece, The Wire's editorial staff had refused to issue a correction—despite the report being extremely factually dubious. This is a sign that the organization has irresponsible oversight from editors, and the organization frankly does not have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy in its investigative journalism. For reasons of having systemic deficiencies in editorial oversight and editors from the paper repeatedly and publicly insisting that false and fabricated content was true until the weight of criticism against them became too great to handle, and several well-respected publications more or less saying that The Wire's credibility is totally shot following this charade, this should source not be considered to be generally reliable—and I would have great concern about using this whatsoever with respect to WP:BLPs. This isn't a case where we're dealing with simple errors or misinformation; these stories well appear to be intentional political disinformation attempts. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 19:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Agreed. This is a case of intentional manipulation for political goal-scoring where it seems even the top leadership has a role. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
RfC: The Wire (India)
Which of the following best describes the reliability of Indian news website The Wire (direct url)?
- Option 1: generally reliable for factual reporting
- Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
- Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
- Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated
— Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Survey: The Wire (India)
- Option 3. As I've noted in my large comment above, what we have here is a website that was exposed for creating hoaxes out of whole cloth in order to engage in political disinformation. The set of fabrications published by The Wire are of such a complex scale as to be compared to infamously fabricated Rolling Stone piece "A Rape on Campus", and many of the same deficiencies that plagued Rolling Stone at the time appear to be plaguing The Wire. When Meta contested the reporting from The Wire, the website outright accused Meta of fabrication rather than admitting its mistakes promptly. They only withdrew the story after doubling- and tripling-down on baseless allegations that were supported by fabricated evidence; rather than doing their due diligence before making extraordinary claims about Meta, The Economist correctly observes that The Wire's editorial staff undertook the
stupidity of choosing partisanship over process
and in the processshattered its own credibility
. Responsible news organizations don't attempt to cover up their mistakes by continuing to fabricate evidence; after being asked to retract the piece, as The Washington Post notes,The Wire also published screenshots of emails it said were from independent experts vouching for its authenticity, but those emails showed incorrect dates from 2021. The images were edited to show the correct dates [(i.e. 2022)] after the story published, but not before readers caught the error
. And lo and behold, those emails were indeed fabricated; everyone who The Wire claims to have sent them an email either explicitly stated that they refused to work with The Wire or stated that they had not been contacted by The Wire. This is a total failure of editorial integrity, from the reporters who initially made the incorrect reports, to the editors who knowingly allowed a doctored email to be published in an attempted cover-up rather than admit their mistake.It isn't just foreign observers who lack confidence in The Wire following these revelations. The Editors Guild of India has noted that issues with factual accuracy extend deeper into the website's investigative reporting, notingserious questions on the veracity of their reporting
in The Wire's investigation of Tek fog, an alleged app that allegedly allowed people to send automated messages to harass female journalists, and reminding the media organizationto resist the temptation of moving fast on sensitive stories, circumventing due journalistic norms and checks
.All in all, this was a total and utter failure of fact-checking on topics that allege significant (and perhaps criminal) wrongdoing against specific parties, on multiple occasions, both on topics with explicit political relevance. This goes beyond sloppiness or misinformation—this was disinformation that appears to have been conducted and approved by both the journalists who wrote the original report as well as the editors who initially attempted to cover that very same report up. I would never want to cite this source for facts about a WP:BLP, nor for contentious facts. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- No reliable secondary sources accuses the editors of covering up or political disinformation nor do they mention accusations on those lines by any third party. To the contrary, the Washington Post article features a comment by the main person (the CIS co-founder) who unraveled the fabrications, where he says that the editor "maintained his personal integrity". This is pertinent because you have missed a key fact that we would not be certain that those emails were fabricated if the editor had not co-operated and disclosed the identities of the senders (they were kept anonymous).
- If they really wanted to, they could have forgone accountability and easily rode on their reputation and it would have remained a debated issue among tech experts. Most of the retractions and commentary came after their own retraction. The structural conditions, i.e pressures on journalistic organisations, the need to protect sources, outstretched resources and the state of press freedom is in far severe condition in India than in the United States (read this article by NYT), so any comparison is misguided.
- And saying that "foreign observers lack confidence in The Wire" (or reliable Indian ones) is inaccurate and there isn't much substantive evidence for it. It should be noted that The Economist piece is an opinion column that is making an appeal to The Wire and in general, and compares their reporting to things like Russian interference in US elections and the Cambridge Analytics scandal related to Brexit, describing them as similar mistakes, as far as I understand these are still debated over if not accepted. The full EGI statement is also a reference to the reporting on the Tek Fog app specifically; it says "Since the Wire has removed those stories as part of their internal review following serious questions on the veracity of their reporting, the Guild withdraws the references made to all those reports". It shouldn't be conflated as a judgement of The Wire general reporting. Tayi Arajakate Talk 09:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 Fabrications and deception by one of their employees (who was subsequently sacked) shouldn't be conflated with the news publisher as a whole. Both the stories whether Tek Fog or the one on Meta were retracted and an apology published. This is standard practise when journalistic misconduct does occur and is an indication of a reliable source.
- They otherwise have a solid track record of investigative journalism and reputation as a high quality news publication, consistently receiving both major Indian and international awards. A lot could be written on this but I'll give one prime example that shows that they are considered authoritative and clearly demonstrate that it's a reliable source. BBC News has the most extensive coverage of any high quality international news publisher in India and they regularly, in nearly every major (and extremely contentious) story on India, use The Wire as a source for important related facts, without seeing the need for any attribution or qualification (such as describing it as a claim) and simply with hyperlinks directly to "thewire.in", some instances (note that these are hard to collect since they don't come up in searches, but are rather abundant):
- hyperlink at "ensure that Muslims stop wearing skullcaps"
- hyperlink at "called Muslims demons", another one at " people have been held over tweets" and another one at "held for putting up posters"
- hyperlink at "criticism"
- hyperlink at "a vendor was beaten up", etc etc
- Other international outlets have a similar practise, using it as a source and present its reporting as facts, a few instances below.
- this report in Columbia Journalism Review on threats to journalists during the 2020 Delhi riots, it was used as a source for facts (see "...fifty-three people, the majority of whom were Muslim, had been killed..." ("fifty-three people" is hyperlinked to a thewire.in article).
- this piece (hyperlink at "disaffection") in the The Diplomat uses it as a source for facts on jurisprudence regarding the sedition law in India
- this Coda Media report (hyperlinks to 4 articles at "rebuke", "had", "observed" and "maintained") uses it as a source for facts regarding migrant workers during COVID-19 pandemic and inconsistencies in the government's claims
- this piece in The Verge on net neutrality
- this report from The Independent on the Haridwar hate speeches, and many more.
- In addition, to give few examples of their reputation, as in how they are described, in the Columbia Journalism Review report on news media in India, The Wire was extensively covered and specifically described to have carried "award-winning reporting", the International Press Institute in a a report during the pandemic had stated that it "is providing some of the best coverage in the Asia-Pacific region on the impact of the coronavirus and the lock-down on disadvantaged and disempowered Indians", Foreign Policy in one of its columns described the publication as "Indian's most respected online news service", etc. Tayi Arajakate Talk 06:54, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- All of these links are from before the controversy. DFlhb (talk) 11:38, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Kindly Disagree. This was not journalistic misconduct. It is a case of fabrication of evidence for political goal-scoring. All the cases that you have provided where The Wire has been cited as a source is before October 2022. I highly doubt that any credible news agency has used their story after this expose. SpunkyGeek (talk) 12:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- It demonstrates that they had a reputation for fact checking and accuracy and any determination of the source as unreliable would mean one would have to discard all articles from this period.
- It also doesn't appear anything has changed post—October 2022, in December 2022, they won 2 Red Ink Awards, one for their contribution in the Pegasus Project collaboration as it's Indian partner (which they still are, and it includes reputable publications from around the world) and one for their report on transgender prisoners. The BBC documentary, India: The Modi Question (which is very high stakes), released in January 2023, features the editor of The Wire in an authoritative capacity. Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:22, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- India: The Modi Question documentary is a controversial documentary. The Wire has a known history of political bias against the present government in India hence much of its reporting is in that particular space. The documentary is a critique of the present Indian government's domestic policies. Most of the journalists who are currently part of The Wire have presented their critical analysis on the then Gujarat government (2002) and the present Indian government, therefore are part of the documentary. (We are not discussing the authenticity of their analysis here)
- The Wire fabricating a piece of evidence to pursue a story with biased editorial oversight is a whole different case. Why I said 'biased' is because there have been no repercussions for senior editors or the board members of The Wire. SpunkyGeek (talk) 20:40, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- It also doesn't appear anything has changed post—October 2022, in December 2022, they won 2 Red Ink Awards, one for their contribution in the Pegasus Project collaboration as it's Indian partner (which they still are, and it includes reputable publications from around the world) and one for their report on transgender prisoners. The BBC documentary, India: The Modi Question (which is very high stakes), released in January 2023, features the editor of The Wire in an authoritative capacity. Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:22, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 3, see my detailed reply in the pre-RFC discussion, which I won't summarise here. The Meta story was genuinely ludicrous; all the tech experts I follow on Twitter immediately questioned its veracity. Why didn't the outlet? This is far worse than A Rape on Campus, which was at least a little plausible. The Meta story had several senior editors (including a founding editor) on the byline. When Meta said sources were fabricated, these senior editors should have checked (indeed, any outlet would have done so before initial publication). Instead, they vociferously quadrupled-down, called Meta's denials "obfuscation", and wrote about Meta's denial in a shockingly combative way (alleging that Meta was trying to "goad" them into revealing their sources). The Wire's editorial failures go far beyond the fired journalist, and four months later, still haven't been addressed. They pledged "transparency", yet haven't publicly announced any changes to their editorial process. Firing a journalist doesn't solve their lack of editorial oversight. The Tek Fog story hasn't been corroborated by other outlets, relied on the now-fired journalist, allegedly has "glaring holes", and yet is still not retracted (only "removed from view"). It's on them to prove they addressed their editorial issues, not on us to assume they did.
- Let's see what third-parties think:
- "Unprecedented polarization, the trumping of ideology over facts, active hate-mongering or pamphleteering, and the death of nuance — particularly in prime time television — all make up the new normal. Journalists are increasingly either chamcha ya morcha: sycophants and shameful supplicants to power, or activists dreaming of regime change." (Semafor)
- "a once-dependable news website", "sheer irresponsibility" (Slate)
- URLs shown in the report didn't actually exist (a MarketWatch reporter)
- "The Wire did not ask Meta for comment [...] ahead of publishing" (a Buzzfeed News reporter); that's egregious!
- I'm not alleging that this was a deliberate hoax on The Wire's part. But I don't need to. I evaluate sources based on their editorial practices, and theirs just aren't good enough. DFlhb (talk) 12:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- This is easy to say in hindsight but the fact is tech experts were uncertain and divided. Even Sophie Zhang, someone who had understanding of Meta's systems was for a time convinced by the journalist's conviction despite her initial doubts. It's also inaccurate to say they have announced no changes, they did in the apology they published.
- In the end there's a simple question, can you (or anyone) bring any news report of theirs or any reliable secondary coverage that questions their reporting and is not in the context of this controversy, this one journalist, or these retracted and/or withdrawn (or "removed from view" if you will) reports?
- There is so much evidence that demonstrates that they have a "reputation for fact checking and accuracy" which is how we determine which sources are reliable, not on our own ideas of their internal workings (based on one episode that is), one should at least be able to show a pattern across the organisation. Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:22, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Zhang had left Facebook two years earlier, and had no understanding of Facebook's then-current systems. She also falsely claimed that the docs must have been faked by a Facebook employee, which is... understandable, given her dislike of the company, but was completely baseless. Meanwhile, independent observers and proper journalists were skeptical from the start, and were harassed by The Wire's supporters.
- The fact is, trust is earned, not given. It's true that they're among the better Indian outlets, but declaring them GENREL means they can be used as sourcing in BLPs, and everywhere else. Here, "business as usual" is not tenable. The polarisation pointed out by Semafor means that it's no longer a case of outstanding independent journalists on one side, and government propagandists on the other side; sadly, the independent side is no longer fully trustworthy either. DFlhb (talk) 14:37, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- That doesn't answer my question, you are just showing me twitter comments and opining on them. With the evidence you have the only articles that shouldn't be used for BLPs and elsewhere are the ones that can't be used anyways because have been withdrawn/retracted. Tayi Arajakate Talk 15:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- The argument that a news outlet is printing against a government can be termed as a reliable source is meaningless in this context.
- Here we have a specific case where it seems that the top leadership of The Wire has participated in the intentional fabricating of evidence. Giving them amnesty would not only set a wrong precedent but will also put a question mark on WP:RSP guidelines. SpunkyGeek (talk) 19:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- The Wire was also ordered to take down 14 (not 1 or 2) of its stories by the Telangana Court for reporting against Indian vaccine manufacturers (Bharat Biotech, COVAXIN). Yet no action was taken by the "internal editorial board" of The Wire.
- (Such were the violations that Telangana Court also barred The Wire from further reporting)
- See:Telangana Court orders The Wire to take down its stories
- If you are claiming this is to be a one-time incident then I have to kindly and strongly disagree with that. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- An Indian court ordering a news source to take down a story does not mean that story is not true; indeed, given recent events, it may even be more likely that it is. Black Kite (talk) 22:23, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- If the stories were authentic, don't you think The Wire would have gone to the higher courts?
- Also, many other publications would have supported them to pursue this. SpunkyGeek (talk) 23:13, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- An Indian court ordering a news source to take down a story does not mean that story is not true; indeed, given recent events, it may even be more likely that it is. Black Kite (talk) 22:23, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- That doesn't answer my question, you are just showing me twitter comments and opining on them. With the evidence you have the only articles that shouldn't be used for BLPs and elsewhere are the ones that can't be used anyways because have been withdrawn/retracted. Tayi Arajakate Talk 15:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- There is so much evidence that demonstrates that they have a "reputation for fact checking and accuracy" which is how we determine which sources are reliable, not on our own ideas of their internal workings (based on one episode that is), one should at least be able to show a pattern across the organisation. Tayi Arajakate Talk 13:22, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
DFlhb In fact, the very Slate article you quoted here shows them having a solid reputation even in midst of the controversy. I hope you read it in its entirety. Some full quotes from it:
- "The Wire has done important, noble work under duress, and its best writing remains a brilliant exemplar of what Indian journalism can do best. But going forward, it’ll be so much harder to do this type of journalism."
- "To be clear, informed analysts of the saga did not tend to believe the Wire acted maliciously in order to defame Meta. Rather, they said this was probably the result of an elaborate scheme planned by someone with a vendetta against the Wire. Or, as Stamos put it, “an extremely successful op against opposition journalism.”"
- "Misinformation from BJP foot soldiers at all levels make it so sites like the Wire are the only way anyone outside India can get an accurate view of one of the world’s most important countries."
- "Wire had become one of the most dynamic Indian publications of the Modi years, a singular bulwark against the flood of false and propagandistic “news” that took over so much of Indian media. Along with outlets like the Caravan, Scroll, Alt News, the Print, and Cobrapost, the Wire offered detailed, incisive reporting on the realities of modern-day Indian life and politics."
- "The pressure is high in the subcontinent, and the Wire’s most intrepid writers doubtlessly face daily threats of the kind few American journalists are familiar with. Yet that also makes their rectitude all the more imperative."
They are treating it like a reputable publication that has made a mistake, which is exactly what we should be doing. Tayi Arajakate Talk 14:32, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I did read it in its entirety, and this misdirects us into the weeds. The fact that The Wire faces threats by the government, or that they weren't outright malicious, or that "their best writing" is good, has nothing to do with their editorial standards, which is what we judge here. The two Slate quotes I give earlier do address The Wire's reliability. Note that beyond publishing an apology, "promising" to vet their stories better, and retracting the Meta story, they still haven't shown any evidence of changes. They still haven't retracted or re-examined their TekFog story, and the founding editor on the Meta byline is still employed. DFlhb (talk) 14:44, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- It has everything to do with "editorial standards" and is exactly what we should be looking at. Coverage from reliable secondary sources is how we determine their reputation and their editorial standards. It doesn't matter whether you find it trustworthy or what you imagine their editorial standards to be. The article is more or less describing their journalism as one of the best and one of the few where you can get actual news in the country, that very very clearly shows that they are considered a reliable source.
- WP:REPUTABLE and WP:USEBYOTHERS are guidelines on reliable sources, and by now it's clear that they more than comply with both. Tayi Arajakate Talk 15:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- There's a difference between a website's stated editorial standards and the extent to which they are put into practice. If extremely senior people are disregarding editorial standards (such as happened in "A Rape on Campus"), then that reflects much, much more broadly on the quality of the organization's editorial oversight than a mere blurb of text that the news organization claims to adhere to. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 15:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I second your point @Red-tailed hawk. The leading editors in this fiasco have faced no inquiries or consequences. The same editorial board is now reviewing the misconduct. This alone should be shocking for an editor with some journalistic standards. SpunkyGeek (talk) 20:58, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- There's a difference between a website's stated editorial standards and the extent to which they are put into practice. If extremely senior people are disregarding editorial standards (such as happened in "A Rape on Campus"), then that reflects much, much more broadly on the quality of the organization's editorial oversight than a mere blurb of text that the news organization claims to adhere to. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 15:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- WP:REPUTABLE and WP:USEBYOTHERS are guidelines on reliable sources, and by now it's clear that they more than comply with both. Tayi Arajakate Talk 15:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Observation What would be the optics of Wikipedia declaring a news source unreliable, when that news source has been one of those recently harrassed by the Modi Government (the most recent was the BBC, whose Indian HQ was invaded by "tax inspectors") because it prints news that show the Government in a bad light? I suggest those optics would be very poor. Black Kite (talk) 15:03, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Nobody here is arguing that the source unreliable because it shows the Indian government in a bad light. We're arguing that it's unreliable because of failures of editorial control and fact-checking, and that responsibility for this goes all the way up to the top. I hope that answers your question. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 15:29, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- The irony here is that BBC itself seems to be find them reliable. Tayi Arajakate Talk 16:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Why are we considering optics here? Whom are we trying to satisfy here? The only thing that should matter is if a news outlet has participated in journalistic malpractice that too intentionally on the highest level, then there should be repercussions for it.
- Those who want to consider optics should also consider that if grave misconduct by a news outlet is gone unscathed what precedent are we setting here? SpunkyGeek (talk) 20:00, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- My concern is that two (yes,two) incidents are being used to turn one of the few reasonably neutral Indian news sources into "unreliable" and put it on the same footing as actual Indian fake news sites such as Republic TV. This isn't the Daily Mail or Russia Today that we're talking about here. Black Kite (talk) 20:47, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- See:Telangana Court orders The Wire to take down its stories
- Another violation for your reference.
- Also, your argument does not provide any substance to nullify points made by @Red-tailed hawk and @DFlhb. SpunkyGeek (talk) 21:11, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I see. Well, on the same subject, perhaps you could give us a run down of this edit of yours, explaining why the mainstream news services there are unreliable (I am well aware that Reddit and forums are no good, it's the other sources I'm interested in). Black Kite (talk) 22:20, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- The context of this forum is The Wire's reliability.
- However, the content written was opinion based rather than having encyclopedic language. I would be happy to work with you on that article if you have some suggestions. SpunkyGeek (talk) 22:59, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I see. Well, on the same subject, perhaps you could give us a run down of this edit of yours, explaining why the mainstream news services there are unreliable (I am well aware that Reddit and forums are no good, it's the other sources I'm interested in). Black Kite (talk) 22:20, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- My concern is that two (yes,two) incidents are being used to turn one of the few reasonably neutral Indian news sources into "unreliable" and put it on the same footing as actual Indian fake news sites such as Republic TV. This isn't the Daily Mail or Russia Today that we're talking about here. Black Kite (talk) 20:47, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 per Tayi_Arajakate. They have a lot of quality content and the response to the Meta incident shows that they have editorial standards and act upon them. Alaexis¿question? 20:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1. It's the response including take down and corrective measures that test a publication's reliability. The case where a publication themselves intentionally fabricates is where it is deemed unreliable. The Wire was deceived by one of their own thus causing a fiasco, the publication didn't intentionally fabricate. They took it down and took corrective actions. Unreliable sources don't — DaxServer (t · m · c) 21:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 3 I think arguments made by @Red-tailed hawk and @DFlhb are spot on. There has been no accountability for the senior editors in this incident. What can be more shocking is the same team is reviewing this debacle. (Not the first time that The Wire is under severe scrutiny). An impartial inquiry is needed which seems highly doubtful here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SpunkyGeek (talk • contribs) 23:10, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1. The Wire has screwed up big time, but their ultimate response has been that of a reliable news organization, and the tenor of the most detailed pieces, such as the Slate article, suggest they have been hoodwinked rather than that they've engaged in intentional malpractice. If something similar happens again in the future, it might suggest that there's a systemic issue here, but otherwise it's too soon to deprecate. Vanamonde (Talk) 22:38, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- The Slate article is a Future Tense column. We recently discussed these sorts of columns on this very noticeboard; the pieces are characterized by Slate itself as
daily commentary published on Slate
, and the piece from Slate isn't exactly straight news reporting. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 06:31, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- The Slate article is a Future Tense column. We recently discussed these sorts of columns on this very noticeboard; the pieces are characterized by Slate itself as
- It's quite inaccurate to charecterise Future Tense as a column (columns are personal or editorial opinion sections of particular columnists). This is a newsletter under a wide collaboration, which includes commentary (and reportage) and brings in expertise with it. Tayi Arajakate Talk 11:10, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1 we shouldn't rush to judgement on the basis of one incident allegedly involving one rogue reporter. The wire has been painted as an anti-Mohdi publication and is therefore subject to intimidation, demonization and propoganda including from pro-Mohdi sources in the same way as many other respectable sources have been including the BBC. See these two articles from The Guardian for some context here and here, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 22:22, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1: for an organization that won prizes for its journalism in the past, and issues corrections when they make mistakes. Mottezen (talk) 22:48, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Option 1: The situation that led to this RFC is very bad, but it is still singular. The organization took the steps one would expect such an organization to take when the problem became known. Long-term, institutional problems have not been demonstrated beyond this event. Yes, it is not good, but it is still just one incident. --Jayron32 14:12, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Comment Then how about Option 2: exercise additional caution for tech-related reporting? That’s a small minority of their stories; and the founding editor admitted that the main reason for this fuckup was a general lack of tech expertise among their staff, who would have caught it if they had better domain-knowledge. This would also allows us to keep using them for Indian politics, since it’s true that they’re one of the few independent publications left in India, and have done some good work. DFlhb (talk) 07:33, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- No, that's a bad option and just unnecessary, it would bring into question their coverage in the Pegasus Project collaboration, for which there is no evidence that there's anything wrong with it. The rest of their other tech related news coverage is just very basic "who said what" reporting; for example this report or this report, there aren't any problems with these either.
- After what happened, it's highly unlikely that they are going to try to pursue any tech related story on their own again, for the foreseeable future. And if any issue arises in the future, we can always revisit this. Tayi Arajakate Talk 09:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
Discussion: The Wire (India)
- @SpunkyGeek, Horse Eye's Back, Jayron32, Capitals00, Austronesier, Aquillion, Slywriter, and Bloodofox: I'm pinging you to notify you about this RfC, as you have all contributed to the discussion immediately preceding it. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- @DFlhb: as well. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:06, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- If I've missed someone who participated in the preceding discussion, feel free to ping them. I tried to go from bottom to top and think I got all the users who participated in the discussion, but it doesn't hurt to check. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Note, I've left notices at Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Journalism regarding this discussion. Tayi Arajakate Talk 14:04, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Tennessee Star - reliable source?
The Tennessee Star (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) / Official website
I'm leaning "no" because it's a right-wing website that tries to make itself look like a newspaper, but I wanted to seek additional input here. Wes sideman (talk) 13:50, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Could you link to an article where it is being cited, so we can see the context in which it is being cited? Blueboar (talk) 14:28, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Blueboar: It's being used today as justification for including a deleted tweet as WP:DUE, in an RfC at Talk:Shaun King. Wes sideman (talk) 17:08, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Kathy Barnette is one, which I remember, because I added the cite. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:04, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Self-described as "the flagship member of the Star News Digital Media family". More on Star News Digital Media in Snopes here. -Location (talk) 15:04, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- No, it is not reliable. It's a Breitbart clone; set up by the same people, for the same purpose, on the same model. It is not a reliable source of information. --Jayron32 15:13, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Clearly ideological but how is it a Breitbart clone? Springee (talk) 15:17, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- This makes the case that it's exactly that. To wit, "He agreed that “Breitbart of Tennessee” would be a fair description of his site," where "he" is Steve Gill, the founder of the website. It isn't me calling it a Breitbart clone, it's the guy who founded and runs it that is. --Jayron32 16:34, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Clearly ideological but how is it a Breitbart clone? Springee (talk) 15:17, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Strikes me as marginal. I don't see an issue using it for the opinion of the writer or for basic, uncontroversial facts but not much more. I do understand that a lot of editors say "it's connected with X source" however we appear to accept media sources that are connected with ideologically motivated groups in some cases but not others. So long as it has the basics of a RS and the claims it is used to support are either uncontroversial or attributed to the author (not just the site) I would say it's OK to use with caution.
- Springee (talk) 15:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- It should not be used with caution. It should be avoided at nearly all costs, and treated like Breitbart. See above, the founder of the website has himself agreed that it is the "Breitbart of Tennessee". That doesn't indicate to me that it is trying to be a reliable source of news. --Jayron32 16:37, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- "
The publication has been compared to Breitbart, which Leahy also writes for
". Taking a gander at the website, it isn't as outright bad as Breitbart, but is still markedly conspiratorial (I mean come on). I don't see why this should be used when other forms of media will cover the same topics. Curbon7 (talk) 15:19, 17 February 2023 (UTC) - Yeah this seems like the kinda source to avoid. Skimming through some articles seem more professional and “objective” a bit with conservative leanings/views. Others though definitely has a more tabloid flavor to it than that of a newspaper. At best people should be cautious using it and it probably should not be the sole source for something except maybe for local issues in Tennessee. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 3Kingdoms (talk • contribs) 18:10, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Probably should be avoided, and definitely not used for BLPs. Might be useful with attribution about local issues. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:15, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think it should be treated on a case-by-case basis. It may be unwise to use for contentious political matters due to its slant, but more appropriate in other cases. Note that whatever Steve Gill has said about it, he apparently hasn't been affiliated in an editorial capacity since 2019.[28]. Also, keep in mind that news outlets tend to only get attention from other outlets when they either have scandals or win major awards: perfectly normal things rarely make the news. I can't find much recent criticism of the Star (e.g. post 2019): a 2022 CJR article mentions the Politico and Snopes criticism, which are from 2018 and 2019 respectively, and also notes that some sources have used the Star's reporting, which could count towards reliability per WP:USEBYOTHERS, and that it has real connections to the places it reports on. While a previous criticism was lacking bylines (hindering transparency), this no longer seems to be the case: thus more recent articles may be more reliable than early ones. It appears to feature a mix of original stories[29][30] and syndicated content from sources like The Center Square[31] and Just the News[32] similar to how Yahoo! News might republish Business Insider, AlterNet, etc. (one of the sources in question is a republished story from The Daily Caller, so that particular article should not be considered reliable). While some contributors appear to have also written for Breitbart (e.g.[33][34]), that doesn't mean everything they've ever written for Breitbart or the Star is automatically unreliable (I haven't yet found evidence the Star rehosts articles from Breitbart, but that would be a different story). The Star is probably more reliable for local politics, interviews and lifestyle topics like musicians, and should be considered questionable and biased for political reporting. Biased sources are by no means prohibited per WP:PARTISAN. For what it's worth, according Media Bias/Fact Check it hasn't failed a fact-check in the past 5 years.[35]. Probably all the Star News Network websites should be treated as one outlet, especially since they seem to share articles and editors. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:24, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- I generally don't look favorably upon the use of hyperpartisan local news websites for contentious facts. Biased sources can be ok if they have substantial editorial oversight and engage in substantial fact-checking, but generally the problem with them is that they have less well-established editorial controls and tend to blur the line between factual reporting and opinion. I'd agree with Springee that it's marginal; it's probably fine for ordinary statements about local politics and local politicians (stuff like
Jane Doe has been a member of the Harrison Township Board of Education since her election in 2016
seems fine if it's sourced to the Tennessee Star), but I would generally advise against using it for contentious statements. This seems like a fairly straightforward partisan mirror of The Colorado Times Recorder, which is being discussed above, and similar considerations should apply to each. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:19, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
The Oklahoman / Accuracy in Media
1. Source. Irvine, Reed; Goulden, Joseph C. (June 1, 1997). "New Wave of Attacks Targets Aldrich". The Oklahoman. Retrieved February 17, 2023.
2. Article. Gary Aldrich.
3. Content. "George Stephanopoulos, serving as White House communications director under the Clintons, was able to exert pressure on the media to ignore the book, and it received little attention from mainstream outlets despite the sensational contents and its popularity with the reading public."
I noticed that this content was cited without the authors to an article in The Oklahoman, however, clicking the link indicates that they may have re-published something originally published in Accuracy in Media by Reed Irvine and Joseph C. Goulden. (For another take on why Gary Aldrich's book may have not been given the publicity some think it deserved, see Margaret Carlson's take in TIME.) At the very least, I think this is a statement that needs attribution. Thoughts? -Location (talk) 22:01, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- Wouldn't this be a BLP issue as it's an allegation against Stephanopoulos? If the only source is a tabloid shouldn't the text be removed, per WP:BLPSOURCES? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:21, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
- @ActivelyDisinterested: I'm not sure. This doesn't look like a typical tabloid, but it does appear to violate WP:REDFLAG if it is considered an "exceptional claim". -Location (talk) 19:27, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I would say it's an exceptional claim, using public office to suppress an unfavorable work is implying corruption. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:34, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- @ActivelyDisinterested: I'm not sure. This doesn't look like a typical tabloid, but it does appear to violate WP:REDFLAG if it is considered an "exceptional claim". -Location (talk) 19:27, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Should be treated as an opinion piece by Reed Irvine and Joseph C. Goulden, for me that means it can't be used at Gary Aldrich. When Aldrich dies that "can't" gets downgraded to a "shouldn't" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:31, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Blue Police in Poland
the following reference is given at Collaboration with the Axis Powers for the statement that the "Blue Police", a Nazi police auxiliary made up of Polish policemen, were recruited "under threat of death". I don't care if it is reliable or it isn't, personally; I will just remove it if it is determined that it is not. I don't speak Polish and the book does not seem to be available online. The link goes to a publisher's page.
Hempel, Adam (1987). Policja granatowa w okupacyjnym systemie administracyjnym Generalnego Gubernatorstwa: 1939-1945 (in Polish). Warsaw: Instytut Wydawniczy Związków Zawodowych. p. 83.
I am looking for another source for the statement, but would be glad to hear from any subject matter experts, anyone who owns the book, or anyone who can suggest a different good source. Thanks all Elinruby (talk) 01:16, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm seeing it referenced twice on Google Scholar; once is to an article (English translation) in The Police Review, while the other is to this article in Polish that is available on WP:TWL but which I cannot read for lack of Polish language skills. It's also cited in page 170 of this English book, which is OUP-published but doesn't appear on Google Scholar, in a chapter on the Polish Blue Police, and on Page 264 of this German book published by a Brill imprint. Out of the two English sources, only the one from The Police Review says something similar (something about the death penalty if the members of the Blue Police did not enforce laws or carry out German orders, which is also stated in this thesis), but that's different than recruiting new policemen under threat of death. Do you have access to the original Polish text from that page? There's a chance it's a translation error making its way into the Wikipedia article. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 06:30, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Would German (here) be easier to understand Elinruby?
GizzyCatBella🍁 06:46, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- well, that's not going to be a source. And although my German is so rusty that I don't really claim to speak it, I *think* that that says that all Polish policemen must without exception report for duty or face strict penalties. Not seeing death mentioned there. But maybe you can answer Red-tailed hawk, who seems to have taken an article interest in the question, because the Polish article ours links to is "collaboration" and doesn't mention Blue police. Elinruby (talk) 22:01, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I do not speak German. My Polish is so rusty that I cannot really claim to speak it; the full extent of my Polish-language knowledge is basic greetings and how to say "I love you", so I'm not going to be able to do original research on primary sources. But also, we're explicitly not supposed to do that when writing articles, so I'm not really sure what I'm being asked to answer here, Elinruby. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 04:49, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- apparently I was unclear. 1) I tagged you in particular since you were interested enough in the question to do a non-trivial amount of googling. I am, to be clear, not asking you to do anything more or spend anymore time on this than you want to. I am a little baffled as to what I might have said that sounded like a request for OR, and would appreciate a note at my talk page about that, so that I can avoid confusing other people. Since I don't think this is an OR question, allow me to rephrase. I saw an article that is very inadequately sourced and had problems of due weight in my eyes. I am still struggling with the latter but as part of my attempt to remedy the referencing, I noted a statement that I found a little surprising, although I don't actually doubt it. I would however like to verify this reference as part of my edit of the article. Is this not best practice?
- I do not speak German. My Polish is so rusty that I cannot really claim to speak it; the full extent of my Polish-language knowledge is basic greetings and how to say "I love you", so I'm not going to be able to do original research on primary sources. But also, we're explicitly not supposed to do that when writing articles, so I'm not really sure what I'm being asked to answer here, Elinruby. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 04:49, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- well, that's not going to be a source. And although my German is so rusty that I don't really claim to speak it, I *think* that that says that all Polish policemen must without exception report for duty or face strict penalties. Not seeing death mentioned there. But maybe you can answer Red-tailed hawk, who seems to have taken an article interest in the question, because the Polish article ours links to is "collaboration" and doesn't mention Blue police. Elinruby (talk) 22:01, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- The reference is in a language that I don't speak, and is not online, where Google Translate might help with that. So what I was hoping when I came here was either a) someone would come by who owns the book or b) someone with some topic knowledge would be able to suggest a better reference. Alternately, since you can't verify it and neither can I, perhaps I should rewrite the sentence to match the sources you found. That part is a question. "Blue Police" gives a LOT of false positives. That part is a comment. If you are tired of this question then I am ok with that too, but that is what the question was, not whatever misimpression I managed to give you somehow. Elinruby (talk) 05:16, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- As noted on my talk page, I think I misunderstood the ping in the comment above to mean that the question was directed at me. Sorry for my confusion. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 05:53, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- The reference is in a language that I don't speak, and is not online, where Google Translate might help with that. So what I was hoping when I came here was either a) someone would come by who owns the book or b) someone with some topic knowledge would be able to suggest a better reference. Alternately, since you can't verify it and neither can I, perhaps I should rewrite the sentence to match the sources you found. That part is a question. "Blue Police" gives a LOT of false positives. That part is a comment. If you are tired of this question then I am ok with that too, but that is what the question was, not whatever misimpression I managed to give you somehow. Elinruby (talk) 05:16, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
Actually... the exact wording in the article is "who were forced, under penalty of death, to work for the German occupation authorities." Maybe the intended meaning here is that they worked under the threat of death, not that they were forced to join under the threat of death. Perhaps I should reword that to clarify (assuming this reading is correct). The sourcing question remains though. Those cite numbers sound low. Should we just go with Red-tailed hawk's sources? Or is there a better one that can be found if we aren't trying to source "recruited on pain of death", which seems to be the wrong reading? The thesis RTH mentions cites the call up to something that looked like it could be another copy of what GCB is showing us... it scrolled away when I tried to copy the footnote. Thank you for any brainpower than anyone applies to this. <g> Elinruby (talk) 22:28, 18 February 2023 (UTC) @GizzyCatBella: Elinruby (talk) 22:31, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Elinruby - translated Polish--> najsurowsze kary = English --> the severest punishments. What were the severest punishments back in 1939? - GizzyCatBella🍁 00:43, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- I take your point. And yet, this is not what the poster says, exactly. So you think this would mean death if you don't join, then I take it? I'd still rather find a source that says that exactly. Surely there is one. Maybe even this one. Elinruby (talk) 01:20, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- What you are seeing is an official document issued in 1939 by Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger ordering pre-war Polish policemen to appear for service or face severest penalties:
All Polish police officials and also Polish police officers who were on duty on September 1, 1939, should report by November 10, 1939, regardless of their previous place of service at the nearest German police office. Officials who do not comply with this request face the severest penalties. Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger
-- Do you still have doubts what that source says? If you do have doubts that severest penalty meant death during the German occupation of Poland, then maybe someone has access to that book, I also want to see it. - GizzyCatBella🍁 06:16, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- That says severest penalties not severest penalty. You changed the meaning by making it singular instead of plural. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Concur with HEB that we should be wary of equating najsurowsze kary / strengste Strafe (severest penalties) with the death penalty. It may be that that is what was intended, it may be that that is what was understood; but it is a act of original research for us to make that connection. WP:NOR requires that the source directly support the material (emphasis in the original); which this primary document does not. - Rotary Engine talk 23:35, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- That says severest penalties not severest penalty. You changed the meaning by making it singular instead of plural. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- I take your point. And yet, this is not what the poster says, exactly. So you think this would mean death if you don't join, then I take it? I'd still rather find a source that says that exactly. Surely there is one. Maybe even this one. Elinruby (talk) 01:20, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Was "severest penalties" specifically a euphemism for the death penalty in Poland of that time period (the same way that "ultimate penalty" might be in English today), and can that be sourced? Alternatively, does the book itself interpret this as describing the death penalty, rather than only providing a quotation from a primary document as in the translated snippet? If either of those is true, then I would say that WP:V is met and the issue becomes entirely about the reliability of the specific book; otherwise, I would agree that we should not be describing it in this way. Either way, this seems like the sort of thing that should be reported in multiple high-quality sources if true, so if it isn't then that could call into question the reliability of the single source that does. With regards to the article, one intermediate option might be to provide the translated quote directly in the article instead. Sunrise (talk) 01:32, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Concur that either of the two cases mentioned would be better; but the first case, involving a combination of two separate sources, impacts poorly with WP:SYNTH. - Rotary Engine talk 03:13, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Was "severest penalties" specifically a euphemism for the death penalty in Poland of that time period (the same way that "ultimate penalty" might be in English today), and can that be sourced? Alternatively, does the book itself interpret this as describing the death penalty, rather than only providing a quotation from a primary document as in the translated snippet? If either of those is true, then I would say that WP:V is met and the issue becomes entirely about the reliability of the specific book; otherwise, I would agree that we should not be describing it in this way. Either way, this seems like the sort of thing that should be reported in multiple high-quality sources if true, so if it isn't then that could call into question the reliability of the single source that does. With regards to the article, one intermediate option might be to provide the translated quote directly in the article instead. Sunrise (talk) 01:32, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
Guys, I think most of the above, i.e. the content issue itself about whether Polish policeman faced death penalty under the Nazi regime, is not really related to reliability (and I suggest this discusison is copied/movied to Talk:Blue Police or like). With regards to the source named by the OP (Hempel, Adam (1987), Policja granatowa...). I can't find much about the author, whom I would qualify now as an "independent historian" (i.e. not affiliated with any institution). Google tells me he was born in 1955, got a PhD from University of Warsaw (I can't find out in what field) and published several books and articles dealing with history of Polish security organizations (police and like). Regarding publisher of this particular book, it had more than one, USHMM states Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, which is a major Polish publishing house. His work is cited by a number of other scholars, which is a positive sign. I can't a dedicated review of it, however; the best I have so far is this: in this Polish-language academic article [36] published in pl:Studia Podlaskie in 2008 by pl:Robert Litwiński (historian at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University), Litwiński writes positively about the book in one paragraph (in Polish, translated by me): However, the most comprehensive and basic study on the Polish Police in the years 1939–1944 are the works of Adam Hempel (Policja granatowa w okupacyjnym systemie administracyjnym Generalnego Gubernatorstwa 1939–1945, Warszawa 1987; Pogrobowcy klęski. Rzecz o policji „granatowej” w Generalnych Gubernatorstwie 1939–1945, Warszawa 1990). The author comprehensively presented the origins and formation of the Polish police service under German occupation, discussed the organization of Polish police authorities in the General Government, their role in the implementation of German occupation policy, cooperation with the resistance movement, and relations with Polish society.
so from what I see so far it seems reliable. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:44, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
*This source [37] says "under threat of penalty", not death. Adam Hempel, if the book even says what is claimed, is not reliable as the book was published under a communist regime in Poland in 1987. During the communist era critical research was impossible and all books were supervised by censors. JoeZ451 (talk) 19:35, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, the death penalty is a sort of penalty, so I think it's a bit dubious to use a source saying
under threat of penalty
necessarily excludes the death penalty being that penalty. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:26, 20 February 2023 (UTC)- Agreed. It doesn't necessarily exclude it; but it also doesn't verify it. And then if we have one source (to which we don't have access) ostensibly suggesting "death penalty", and other sources, which we can access, suggesting an unspecified penalty, we want to think about how any article text aligns with WP:DUE. - Rotary Engine talk 03:13, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, the death penalty is a sort of penalty, so I think it's a bit dubious to use a source saying
Guys. I just spent one hour digging through sources, and writing an analysis, only to loose it to a browser memory crash... sigh. TL;DR: None of the sources I found says anything about this (as in, no source I found discusses the issue of penalties for refusal to re-enlist in 1939; some sources do mention death penalty but for disobeying orders in general, presumably after re-enlisting). And while it would be good to verify what is written in Hempel, p.83 I am leaning towards this being an error (I don't want to say hoax) introduced by an anon in 2008: [38]. I've tagged the current claim the article with [verification needed] but frankly, I think we can just be bold and either restore the original wording (arrest, not death penalty) or change it to "severest punishments'" per discussion above. (Pl wiki, I'll note, does not state death penalty either, it just uses the "severest punishments" language and references the very poster we have above, which is a bit ORish, if arguably factually correct). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:44, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Elinruby and Piotrus: I would say remove this claim. The source is obscure and dated. Especially given that Grabowski & Klein refute it:
- ‘Shortly after the German Invasion of Poland,’ says the [Wiki] article’s section on Poland, ‘the Nazi authorities ordered the mobilization of prewar Polish officials and the Polish police (the Blue Police), who were forced, under penalty of death, to work for the German occupation authorities.’ The Germans did indeed impose severe punishments on those refusing to serve in the new police force, but not the death penalty, and no documented case exists of a Polish officer being executed for such refusal.[1]
References
- ^ Grabowski, Jan; Klein, Shira (2023-02-09). "Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust". The Journal of Holocaust Research. 0 (0): 1–58. doi:10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939. ISSN 2578-5648.
- This is a controversial, if not a WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim, which needs better sources than a 1990 publication and a poster that does not mention death penalty. --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:38, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- @K.e.coffman Agreed. The only question is do we restore the original wording ("arrest") or go with "severe/severest(?) punishments" instead? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:44, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'd say go with "severe"; better to avoid bombastic language in Wiki prose. --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:46, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- @K.e.coffman Done, feel free to tweak further. I'll also note that anon's edit violated WP:TSI, IMHO. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:54, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'd say go with "severe"; better to avoid bombastic language in Wiki prose. --K.e.coffman (talk) 04:46, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- @K.e.coffman Agreed. The only question is do we restore the original wording ("arrest") or go with "severe/severest(?) punishments" instead? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:44, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I deleted "under pain of death" for now. I did not see the change Piotrus is talking about. Maybe he got distracted or maybe I overwrote him, come to think of it. If so it was by accident (many windows open). I have no emotional investment in the particular wording that remains; this just seemed like the fastest way to make the article less wrong, as this is far from the only issue with it. (Eyes welcome). I am extremely fine with anyone who wants to do so changing the wording. Alternately, since some editors seem to not want to edit the article, and I'm probably already going to wikihell anyway, I will change wording on request, preferably for multiple editors agreeing. Oh and the reference remains. It probably supports "forced to join"? LMK Elinruby (talk) 10:36, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Which article did you edit? The one I edited is Blue Police, diff above, and you haven't edit that one... Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:55, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Ah that explains that. Collaboration with the Axis powers is the one I edited. Elinruby (talk) 12:18, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Which article did you edit? The one I edited is Blue Police, diff above, and you haven't edit that one... Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 10:55, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I deleted "under pain of death" for now. I did not see the change Piotrus is talking about. Maybe he got distracted or maybe I overwrote him, come to think of it. If so it was by accident (many windows open). I have no emotional investment in the particular wording that remains; this just seemed like the fastest way to make the article less wrong, as this is far from the only issue with it. (Eyes welcome). I am extremely fine with anyone who wants to do so changing the wording. Alternately, since some editors seem to not want to edit the article, and I'm probably already going to wikihell anyway, I will change wording on request, preferably for multiple editors agreeing. Oh and the reference remains. It probably supports "forced to join"? LMK Elinruby (talk) 10:36, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Reliable source really just means "reliably published source". That is, someone can verify it was published, not that its contents are true. The real question most people want to answer is "can it go in the article", and that's more a matter of due weight, which falls under NPOV. Include Hempel alongside Grabowski's contradiction of it without trying to anoint a winner. Sennalen (talk) 02:15, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Sennalen I don't think there is any contradiction. Hempel was used for "arrest", initially, then anon changed it to "death penalty". As I said above, this seems like anon's violated WP:TSI, it's not certain by any means Hempel's discusses "death penalty" in this context (sadly, his work is hard to access outside physical copies in libraries in Poland). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:26, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Sennalen: I would not oppose the text about death being restored in Blue Police, if we could verify it. But I'm trying to verify sourcing in Collaboration with the Axis powers, which has world-wide scope and is part of Grabowski's dispute over our historiography. I'm trying to find room for Japanese forced labor practices and probably will need to do a split to manage that, let alone parse the degree of compulsion the Polish police were under. You are correct in saying that sources do not need to be online, but they are vastly preferred for contested assertions about the details of contentious topics. If somebody thinks I am wrong about weight here, I'm listening, but for weight in *this* article I see Piotrus making a good-faith attempt to find another source and not succeeding, and K.E.Coffman advising us not to die on this hill. Elinruby (talk) 05:00, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- And, seriously, guys, this is probably an error introduced by an IP editor. WP:DUCK, move on. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:07, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Sennalen: I would not oppose the text about death being restored in Blue Police, if we could verify it. But I'm trying to verify sourcing in Collaboration with the Axis powers, which has world-wide scope and is part of Grabowski's dispute over our historiography. I'm trying to find room for Japanese forced labor practices and probably will need to do a split to manage that, let alone parse the degree of compulsion the Polish police were under. You are correct in saying that sources do not need to be online, but they are vastly preferred for contested assertions about the details of contentious topics. If somebody thinks I am wrong about weight here, I'm listening, but for weight in *this* article I see Piotrus making a good-faith attempt to find another source and not succeeding, and K.E.Coffman advising us not to die on this hill. Elinruby (talk) 05:00, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Sennalen I don't think there is any contradiction. Hempel was used for "arrest", initially, then anon changed it to "death penalty". As I said above, this seems like anon's violated WP:TSI, it's not certain by any means Hempel's discusses "death penalty" in this context (sadly, his work is hard to access outside physical copies in libraries in Poland). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:26, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
Quoting from an unreliable source, when the unreliable source is cited by multiple reliable sources.
In the article Killing of Brianna Ghey, we have a sentence that originally read The Independent reported that a parent of one of her school friends criticised the initial police statement, saying, "Let's be frank, she was bullied because of her sexuality. Of course this is a hate crime."
, citing this article. It's gone through a couple of revisions since then and currently reads According to the Independent, MailOnline reported that a parent of one of her school friends criticised the initial police statement, saying, "Let's be frank, she was bullied because of her sexuality. Of course this is a hate crime."
, cited to the same article. The relevant paragraphs in the citation are the three paragraphs beginning from Damian Harry, who said his 15-year-old daughter
, with the later two paragraphs being direct quotations from Harry that appear in a MailOnline article.
This was objected to on the article's talk page, as the original source of the quotation from Damien Harry is the MailOnline, and that Wikipedia should not be using any info sourced to a deprecated source, even indirectly.
Is this the case? Are we unable to indirectly cite interview comments that first appeared in a deprecated source, when the same comments are re-reported in other reliable sources? Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:53, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Think there is a policy/guideline/essay somewhere that says this but wouldn't it be the same as NYPost in Hunter Biden laptop controversy and Twitter Files with SUBSTACK/Twitter? The parts that are referenced by reliable sources can be used as they are placing their editorial integrity on the line. A similar policy here is restoring a banned editors edits, which the restoring editor then takes responsibility for. Slywriter (talk) 02:03, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm almost certain that this has been addressed somewhere before, possibly somewhat recently on this noticeboard, I'll just be damned if I can find it. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:11, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- For my part, it is my understanding that other considerations aside, so long as we are not directly citing the deprecated source and that the quotation has appeared in other reliable sources, we are allowed to include that content. I'm almost certain a similar issue to this was discussed on this noticeboard at some point in the not so recent past, however my search-fu of the archives has so far been unable to find that discussion. And because we are anonymously quoting, summarising and attributing this to a parent of a friend of Brianna's, we are not putting anything into Wikivoice as a fact.
- While I wasn't able to find the past discussion from this noticeboard, I did discover two other examples (Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party and Stabbing of Salman Rushdie) where we are indirectly citing the MailOnline through other reliable sources.
- Finally, I'm aware that neither the current nor original sentences are ideal. If there is a consensus that we can indirectly cite the MailOnline, then that sentence will be rephrased into one that's more natural to read. However because of this current issue that could result in the removal of the sentence, we've not spent any time yet on writing a replacement. So it's safe to assume that once this question has been answered, the sentence will either be removed or rephrased as required. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:09, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Generally speaking, performing research on sources we would consider unreliable and using their fact-checking (backed by their reputation) to produce reliable reporting out of it is part of the point of a WP:RS; obviously something from an RS can't be dismissed simply because it is reporting on something from a non-RS, or we wouldn't be able to cover anything at all. The one caveat is that it's important to rely on what the proximate (actually reliable) source says - sometimes there are situations where someone first writes something using a non-WP:RS, then it gets replaced with a RS quoting that non-RS, but the original text is never rewritten to reflect what the RS itself says. If the WP:RS cites a non-RS in a way that is clearly skeptical or cautious, we have to be careful to reflect that in our wording; likewise, if they cite it in a way that balances out different viewpoints we have to be careful to reflect that balance overall and not pull one part out in an undue manner. --Aquillion (talk) 03:35, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- In this specific circumstance, neither the Mail nor Independent have made commentary on what Damian Harry said. Both sources just quote his words. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
obviously something from an RS can't be dismissed simply because it is reporting on something from a non-RS, or we wouldn't be able to cover anything at all.
This is interesting, there's a trio of related articles (related to each other, not the article that spawned this discussion) that I may need to bring here after this, where an editor has been excluding content from reliable sources because they are reporting factually on something that first appeared in an non-RS. In that circumstance, the proximate sources state something as factual, that we're currently reporting on with far more scepticism than any of the reliable sources on the topic report it on. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:53, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don't think that our article expressing skepticism under that circumstance would be appropriate at all. Second-guessing the methodology and fact-checking of a source (including by saying eg. "they shouldn't have trusted X, and they obviously just copy-pasted from there with no fact-checking) is inappropriate WP:OR. Of course I'd have to see the source, the text in question, etc. and so on, but generally-speaking I don't think we're supposed to second-guess the sources used by sources, and that discussing them generally veers into WP:OR (no differently than questioning a paper's methodology.) If people believe skepticism exists they should find sources expressing that skepticism, rather than making the argument themselves in talk and then inserting that into the article. --Aquillion (talk) 04:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- That was my thinking on this as well. I'll drop you a message on your talk page when I make another RSN discussion for it later. Sideswipe9th (talk) 04:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don't think that our article expressing skepticism under that circumstance would be appropriate at all. Second-guessing the methodology and fact-checking of a source (including by saying eg. "they shouldn't have trusted X, and they obviously just copy-pasted from there with no fact-checking) is inappropriate WP:OR. Of course I'd have to see the source, the text in question, etc. and so on, but generally-speaking I don't think we're supposed to second-guess the sources used by sources, and that discussing them generally veers into WP:OR (no differently than questioning a paper's methodology.) If people believe skepticism exists they should find sources expressing that skepticism, rather than making the argument themselves in talk and then inserting that into the article. --Aquillion (talk) 04:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Reliable sources regularly cite things Wikipedia considers to be unreliable sources all the time; it's a basic way that journalism operates. Journalists work with primary sources that we would not consider reliable for facts—one-on-one interviews with witnesses to a crime committed by a living person, public databases, archives of blogposts, ISIS propaganda, OSINT twitter accounts, press releases, etc.—and use them to construct an article that is consistent with their newsroom's standards. Think of how news organizations handle coverage of civil legal disputes: if there are two sides of a legal dispute, for example, the written statements of a plaintiff (such as a motion for summary judgement) is not WP:RS for whether or not those charges are based in fact, and neither would be a defense attorney's writings in court patently denying all of the plaintiff's allegations. Typically, news organizations will describe what each side is arguing, quoting from each side in a dispute and providing each side some weight, and the news article might also provide additional context on its own regarding the facts in the case. It seems pretty straightforward how we'd deal with that in an article.
- WP:RS/QUOTE notes that
To ensure accuracy, the text of quoted material is best taken from (and cited to) the original source being quoted
. If a reliable secondary source is reporting on a quote from a primary source document, then we should look to verify the quote in the primary source and we should cite both. If we have access only to the secondary source, we have to state where we actually got the quote from, and we obviously can't cite the primary source. To continue with the example above, if we have access to the writings of the defense attorney and the prosecutor, and the news organization made an obvious error in quoting one of them, then we should use common sense (for example, if the newsorg accidentally introduces a typo like "we are seeking to expedite the trial" to "we are seeking to expedite the trail", then we can just cite both the newsorg and the original document and use the correct quote). - In any case, I think that a similar logic would apply to when reputable news organizations publish articles contain quotes from text written in the voice of tabloids or other news agencies that we would not consider to be reliable; the news organization has chosen to give the quote some weight, and we should faithfully represent that. The logic becomes a bit more stretched when we're dealing with a reliable news group quoting an unreliable tabloid who is quoting a parent who themselves a 15 year-old who new the victim and is making specific criminal allegations against living people, albeit two people whose identities are probably sub judice so the BLP considerations are probably lower than they would otherwise be. I'd be inclined to think this is more of a WP:DUE issue; is the specific quote from the 15 year-old something that's give a bunch of weight in sources? I would generally tend towards exclusion on the quote in favor of prose description (something like
A parent of one of Ghey's friends, speaking with the Daily Mail, alleged that the killing was a hate crime.... Police initially stated that they had no evidence supporting the claim that this was a hate crime, but since have opened an investigation as to whether or not the killing may be a hate crime.
might work better based off of a general reading of the article in The Independent) but again that's more of a weight/style question on the specific words. - — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 05:27, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- So just to clarify, the quotation as it originally appeared and subsequently reused in other sources is from the father of one of Brianna's friends, not from the friend. While DUE issues are a bit out of scope for this noticeboard, two RS have included the same "Let's be frank" comments that originally appeared in the MailOnline: The Independent and LGBTQ Nation. Other quotations from the same father have appeared in various RS over the last few days, and he has appeared on camera on Sky News and I believe both BBC and Channel 4, though clips of the later two are not easy to search for. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:44, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
Fox News Knew It Was A Lie: Fox News Purposely Pushed Deception On 2020 Voting
In case anyone hasn't noticed, the discovery process in the Dominion vs Fox case has uncovered damning info about how Fox knew Trump's "stolen election" Big lies were bogus, yet kept pushing the company's Murdoch agenda. “The messages exposed Fox News as a propaganda network.” Rupert Murdoch and his talking heads at Fox News all knew how ridiculous Rudy Giuliani sounded, and knew how wrong the big lie was, but they helped spread it.
As we have known for a long time, this is not an occasional "bug", but a "feature" of Fox News. For them, telling the uncomfortable truth in politics and science in the Trump age is only an occasional thing that gets the offender punished by their own colleagues and management. They must toe the party line.
Rupert Murdoch told Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott that they should try not to “antagonize Trump” by reporting the truth about bogus voter fraud claims and instead should focus on helping elect Republicans in the Georgia runoff elections. Fox has no written editorial guidelines. This is what distinguishes Fox News from an actual news organizations.
Hosts on Rupert Murdoch's propaganda channel Fox News, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, & Laura Ingraham, didn't believe the allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election but chose to amplify the BIG LIE, according to court filings in Dominion's $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit.
Here are a few sources, all properly formatted for immediate use. Do not remove the "name" function:
It's too hard to maintain this list here, so I have created a subpage. Please look there for the growing list:
User:Valjean/Sources for Dominion vs Fox News scandal
Isn't it about time we actually deprecate Fox News?
- This was not accidental, or "all networks make mistakes".
- This is not "misinformation", but deliberate "disinformation".
- This is, and has been for a long time, a normal "feature" of their modus operandi.
- It's not a one-time thing, but an autopsy over long-standing behavior.
- It reveals their "journalists" have no moral scruples. The good ones have abandoned them.
They totally fail requirements for consideration as a RS. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:04, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- To me, the most alarming thing here is that Tucker Carlson demanded that Jacqui Heinrich be fired for fact-checking him, and the fact that Kristin Fisher, who since left the company, was disciplined for fact-checking Rudy Giuliani. These are alarming because those two were supposed to be part of Fox's news side, not its talk / opinion side; and our decision to leave some parts of Fox as WP:MREL for politics rather than unreliable or fully deprecated depended entirely on the assumption that Fox maintained a divide between those two parts. These things indicate that that's not the case; if there's a general pattern of the news side being essentially run like the talk side then that's a clear reason for another RFC given that the previous one's conclusion depended on at least some editors arguing that that wasn't happening. --Aquillion (talk) 04:14, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- While I'm not clamoring for another RFC just yet, I certainly agree with Aquillion's observation and Valjean's analysis. I'd be interested to hear from some of the editors who believed that status quo was a good outcome from the prior RFC (not from the "Fox is GENREL crowd" who I assume will never change their minds no matter what happens) whether this changes their mind at all. The previous RFC found a consensus that Fox News was not reliable, but did not find a consensus to pronounce it generally unreliable. In my mind, many of the arguments hinged on the idea that many news media are also unreliable (which is not an accurate or substantive argument in my view), the closer also said that there seemed to not be a general consensus of the level of standard we hold media to (or at least, what it would take to be "generally unreliable") I'm probably paraphrasing badly, but I think any new RFC should have a close read of the prior RFC's arguments and closing, and see if any of the "status quo" crowd could be persuaded before we engage in an endeavor that will likely end in a fruitless stalemate. Andre🚐 04:21, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Well, since WP:RS is about a source's overall
reputation for fact-checking and accuracy
, the main thing to do is probably to wait a bit and see if these things impact Fox's. Of course, I'm already on the record as saying repeatedly that I don't think Fox as a whole meets the threshold of having that reputation; but at the very least if followup coverage shows a clear decline in its overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy among top-tier sources, then people who argue that it did meet that threshold, or came close enough to it to be WP:MREL in the case of politics, should have to explain how it continues to do so - especially if there's sustained coverage emphasizing the pressure on the news side to cover things inaccurately, coupled with evidence that the network's overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy has been harmed as a result. --Aquillion (talk) 04:49, 18 February 2023 (UTC)- I agree, I like the wait and see approach. This story is fresh and will likely have a protracted impact as more info comes out and analysis. Andre🚐 04:53, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Another thing that comes to mind, after reading coverage a bit more: One aspect I'm seeing a lot of focus on is the idea that Fox measurably changed tactics in response to the backlash from its base after it called Arizona for Biden - that is, there was a serious, deliberate shift at the top level to reposition the news side away from straight reporting and more towards essentially backing up the things said on the opinion side, at least when it came to the election. If that proves to be a broader and longer-term shift, and coverage reflects it, it might be worth having a future RFC be for post-2020 Fox coverage of politics, since this gives us a reason to think that the aftermath of the 2020 election and the backlash to Fox's news coverage there may have lead to changes that reduced its reliability. --Aquillion (talk) 21:13, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I agree, I like the wait and see approach. This story is fresh and will likely have a protracted impact as more info comes out and analysis. Andre🚐 04:53, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Well, since WP:RS is about a source's overall
- While I'm not clamoring for another RFC just yet, I certainly agree with Aquillion's observation and Valjean's analysis. I'd be interested to hear from some of the editors who believed that status quo was a good outcome from the prior RFC (not from the "Fox is GENREL crowd" who I assume will never change their minds no matter what happens) whether this changes their mind at all. The previous RFC found a consensus that Fox News was not reliable, but did not find a consensus to pronounce it generally unreliable. In my mind, many of the arguments hinged on the idea that many news media are also unreliable (which is not an accurate or substantive argument in my view), the closer also said that there seemed to not be a general consensus of the level of standard we hold media to (or at least, what it would take to be "generally unreliable") I'm probably paraphrasing badly, but I think any new RFC should have a close read of the prior RFC's arguments and closing, and see if any of the "status quo" crowd could be persuaded before we engage in an endeavor that will likely end in a fruitless stalemate. Andre🚐 04:21, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not for nothing, but isn't basically all this does is confirm that the late night talk show hosts are not reliable, which is already the case? There's no question that there are serious factual errors with Hannity, The Ingraham Angle, and Tucker Carlson Tonight that render the programs unfit for citing on Wikipedia... but that's currently already what we note at WP:RSP. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 04:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- As stated above, most of the links provided above related to the TV talk shows (Fox News Channel), not the news website. Pertinent to for our purposes is what Aquillion lays out with the interference into the operation of the actual news portion. Curbon7 (talk) 04:27, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- First, we should be careful about using deposition testimony where claims haven't been challenged etc to decide that the news branch isn't reliable. This is especially true if the Dominion legal team is releasing this information in order to shape the public understanding before a trial or to push for a better settlement without a trial. Second, as others have noted, this seems to fit what we have already said, Fox talk shows are not reliable. I would also ask, what problem would further moves on Fox News solve? It's rarely cited as many editors treat it as if it's not reliable already. Springee (talk) 04:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Springee: I think you may have meant to say Fox talk shows aren't reliable. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 05:32, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
This sounds eerily familiar: "Fox News could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and boldly and knowingly lie about everything, and it wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible." -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:28, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- We already don't use Hannity or Carlson or talking heads for factual reporting, and advise caution per Fox News political reporting per WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS. This doesn't seem to concern Fox's straight news coverage. Are we to believe that that Kyle Jacobs is NOT dead or Bruce Willis does NOT have dementia just because Fox News reports it? Beyond jumping on the Fox News Hate Train and venting how much we despise Tucker, what more can Wikipedia do? --Animalparty! (talk) 04:47, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- That's neither here nor there because it concerns entertainment. The last RFC was constrained to science and politics. We should probably constrain any hypothetical or current discussion even further to just politics. Most Fox science content already fails MEDRS. Andre🚐 04:55, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- "Most Fox science content already fails MEDRS. " This is not unique to Faux News. The current standards for MEDRS in Wikipedia requires us to avoid most popular press articles on medical topics: "The popular press is generally not a reliable source for scientific and medical information in articles. Most medical news articles fail to discuss important issues such as evidence quality, costs, and risks versus benefits, and news articles too often convey wrong or misleading information about health care." Dimadick (talk) 07:45, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
Are we to believe that that Kyle Jacobs is NOT dead or Bruce Willis does NOT have dementia just because Fox News reports it?
- This is a meaningless comparison, as sources that we have already deprecated also produce factual content too. That doesn't change the fact that they were deprecated for a reason, which is due to actively producing disinformation that meant they couldn't be trusted as a generality, even if they might technically produce factual content as well. SilverserenC 05:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Has Fox News been used for anything remotely controversial since the last RfC? If the answer is no, then our process already work and there is no need to expend the time and energy necessary to further split the hair.Slywriter (talk) 05:15, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- A key word in all these reports is court filings. These are unproven claims. I know its really tempting to jump on these to use to dismiss Fox News, but we cannot use such court documents as valid source to speak of something in Wikivoice. --Masem (t) 14:45, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Masem, the commentary from RS is about the actual evidence, the internal Fox News/Murdoch communications that reveal they knew they were pushing crazy BS. We do not need to wait for any legal judgment. We have what RS say, and they say a lot, including about how this isn't just about the talking heads we already ignore, but about how the Fox News organization operates, including the news division. They literally have no written editorial policy. They just follow Murdoch's agenda, and it has always been anti-democracy and make money by any means possible. That's the history of Murdoch and his empire.
- Fox News threatens, punishes, and fires those employees, including in the news division, who fact-check BS pushed by the news division. Complaints between each other is kept private and separate from what is revealed to the public. Open fact-checking is discouraged and punished. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Its evidence in a court case. We cannot assume the evidence is true until it has passed through the court, where if they are true, it will be part of the court's decision. This is a requirement of how we handle information from any ongoing court case, so we absolutely have to wait until the court decides to then take the court's decision and stance on this evidence as true. I will stress that I personally think the evidence is all true, and the court case against Fox is very much falling against them, but from being a Wikipedia editor, I have to recognize that we don't presently have the appropriate filter (the final decision) to treat it as truth.
- Besides, as Blueboar points out, even if this all proves too, this doesn't change how Fox News would be classified at RSP; we still have to use extreme caution of using Fox News non-opinion works for politics. Masem (t) 17:32, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don't think there is any proposal to directly use court documents to write article content about Fox News in Wikivoice. We absolutely can use evidence which does not meet RS standards to evaluate a source on RSP. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:50, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- No need to change anything - We already say that Fox’s coverage of politics is unreliable, and we already say that opinion journalism from the likes of Hannity and Carlson is unreliable. Blueboar (talk) 15:11, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- To be clear, we currently list Fox's coverage of politics as yellow / WP:MREL, not unreliable. Many people, including people contributing to this discussion, have used this to argue against the removal of plainly controversial things related to politics that are cited solely to Fox, or to argue for using it in situations where it is the only source saying something. --Aquillion (talk) 19:34, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Indeed, it has come up at least a handful of times since the last RFC, such as the Twitter Files and the Hunter Biden laptop controversy. There are still those who want to use Fox News for plainly controversial political topics. Andre🚐 21:44, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- To be clear, we currently list Fox's coverage of politics as yellow / WP:MREL, not unreliable. Many people, including people contributing to this discussion, have used this to argue against the removal of plainly controversial things related to politics that are cited solely to Fox, or to argue for using it in situations where it is the only source saying something. --Aquillion (talk) 19:34, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- The current consensus is that Fox talking heads on cable TV != the Fox News website, and nothing here seems to contest that. While I believe that our policy on WP:PARTISAN sources is far too forgiving, this doesn't seem like it changes anything. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:04, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Fox News threatens, punishes, and fires those employees, including in the news division, who fact-check the news division when it pushes BS, and it does. Internal complaints are kept private and separate from what is revealed to the public. Open fact-checking is discouraged and punished. Murdoch dictates that for everyone, including the news division.
What we need to change is to make it official that Wikipedia deprecates Fox News. What we do and our policies must be in sync with each other. We need to stop giving Fox a "Trump exemption" which protects high-profile right-wing BS here. Fox is no more sacred than Trump, and we finally, after far too long, acquiesced to the overwhelming weight of RS that confirmed Trump is a pathological liar and started doing what RS did, to call him a "liar" in wikivoice. We should have, without question, right from the beginning, followed what RS said, but we didn't. Our history of giving right-wing sources a longer rope than left-wing sources is a spot on our reputation.
We need to officially stop giving them a free pass. We need to be able to point to an official position, just as we do with any other source that pushes BS. Why treat Fox differently for the same crimes as New York Post, Daily Mail, The Federalist, OAN, Drudge Report, Breitbart News, Newsmax, RedState, InfoWars, The Daily Wire, The Daily Caller, Conservative Tribune, and Townhall? There is no justification for treating Fox News differently. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I’m not sure how you can say we give Fox a “free pass” when we explicitly state that Fox is considered unreliable for certain topics (politics being highlighted). Blueboar (talk) 17:47, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Because we deprecate other sources guilty of knowingly and consistently pushing BS. Accidental or occasional misinformation happens to all RS, but a sustained pattern of real disinformation? No, that's where we draw the line, EXCEPT for Fox News. That's so wrong. Why make an exception for Fox News? They cannot be trusted.
- Sure, they also report accurate news, while they deliberately ignore and refuse to report on topics that go against the Murdoch/GOP/Trump agenda. They sin by omission an awful lot. Unlike other networks, Fox is Murdoch's machine, not a real news organization. It's a propaganda network. His agenda is the editorial policy, which explains why they have no written editorial policy. Murdoch instructed them to not antagonize Trump.
- Is there really no sin bad enough to get Fox News deprecated? Do they really have to "shoot someone on 5th Avenue" and we still won't deprecate them? That's what you're telling me. How long will we completely ignore our own requirements for a RS? Tell me where your red line is located in this matter. There seems to literally be no bottom, no red line, that will cause us to ever deprecate them. Please tell me that's not true. Where is your red line? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:12, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Ah… I see, you want to see the magic word “deprecated”. Meh… I don’t see the need. We already say Fox should not be used for politics… that restriction is effectively deprecation where it matters. Using a magic word is pointless. Blueboar (talk) 18:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Let's be clear, the distinction is not simply semantic. Currently Fox News is considered not generally reliable and should not be used for controversial statements in politics. We haven't declared it generally unreliable and generally should not be used for any politics. In my view, a downgrade would move it from Option 2 to Option 3 for politics. That is not the same as deprecated - it would move from WP:MREL to WP:GUNREL for politics. Andre🚐 18:36, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Ah… I see, you want to see the magic word “deprecated”. Meh… I don’t see the need. We already say Fox should not be used for politics… that restriction is effectively deprecation where it matters. Using a magic word is pointless. Blueboar (talk) 18:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- There was a time when the network's mendacity was largely limited to its primetime hours, but in more recent years it has metastasized throughout the day, from Fox&Friends in the morning to Outnumbered in the afternoon to Jesse Watters leading into primetime. It's now pervasive and the sheer volume of it can be hard to keep up with. Fortunately there are several folks on Twitter who watch all of it and post video clips throughout the day. The network "went big" on mendacity to adopt the "say anything" Trump style and is now overwhelmingly propaganda sprinkled with some "real" news here and there, but there's copious examples of even that being poisoned with lies. The entire enterprise, including its website that reflects and amplifies its programming, simply cannot be trusted on anything. That it is the 800-pound gorilla of conservative media matters not. soibangla (talk) 18:59, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Are you saying we should trust random and likely ideologically motivated people on twitter to aid in making our choices? Isn't that like using Libs of Tiktok to define the views of those on the left? Springee (talk) 19:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- "is now overwhelmingly propaganda sprinkled with some "real" news here and there" That much of their political content is propaganda has been rather clear for years. But I am under the impression that their crime coverage tends towards sensationalism and alarmism. I keep coming across online articles which note that the Fox news audience is convinced that there is some kind of crime epidemic. Dimadick (talk) 08:08, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- This is just court filings around talk shows which we deem unreliable already not much to see here. Again editors conflating the talk shows with the website. Spy-cicle💥 Talk? 19:33, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Well, it’s not just the talk shows if the talk show hosts got a news division reporter fired for fact checking their narrative. The current rating for Fox News (politics and science) is “reliability unclear”. Is it really still unclear after all the resignations, revelations, books, etc.? Also, it appears some editors believe the website is the same as the news division. But, it looks more like the talk shows with attacks against one party for years. Last time this came up, I asked for the names of the people considered in the news division and don’t think I got an answer. I can’t find this on Google as I keep getting Hanity, Carlson, etc. Who are the people that are considered green at RS/PS? O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- I would list Bret Baier as probably the most prominent name in their news division. Blueboar (talk) 13:38, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Blueboar, I agree. NPR wrote this:
- "On Nov. 5, 2020, just days after the election, Bret Baier, the network's chief political anchor texted a friend: "[T]here is NO evidence of fraud. None. Allegations - stories. Twitter. Bulls---."[1]
- and we have this:
- Good for them, but even as news anchors, they were not allowed to publicly express such views. Wallace is now at CNN. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:59, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Objective3000 asked for the name of someone in the News Division, I gave one of the more prominent ones. More to the point, Baier is someone at Fox who does not engage in the sort of crap complained about in the lawsuit. I would consider Baier’s reporting very reliable. If you think otherwise, please explain why? Blueboar (talk) 22:14, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Blueboar, I agree. He's good. Unfortunately, he's not the only one there, and the corporation mixes the opinion and news stuff in deceptive ways ALL THE TIME, and when good people like Baier object, they get told to keep their opinions off-air or they get in trouble.
- They can tell the truth about non-GOP, non-Trump, non-COVID, non-vaccines, non-climate change, topics ad libitum, add nauseum, so that really means we have no use for them and should tell editors and the world we can't trust them to tell the truth all the time, and can't trust them to tell the truth when it's against their fringe right-wing political agenda and their anti-science agenda. There is no justification for not downgrading their status. If we don't deprecate them, we should upgrade Daily Mail and some other deprecated sites that are better than Fox News. Fox's popularity makes it a dangerous site. I don't think we should do that, so I still think we're violating our own policies and sending a horrible message to the world by not deprecating them, especially in light of all these solid revelations.
- The world looks to Wikipedia, and our quibbling here is visible and will be compared to the internal quibblings by the Fox News people, and those who refuse to deprecate will end up looking like Hannity and Carlson, who refused to tell the truth. We know that editors end up getting named in the press. I got hung out by Breitbart as a "Russiagate truther" because I still think Russia interfered in the 2016 elections. (I'll take that as a badge of honor, considering it's from Breitbart!) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:48, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Objective3000 asked for the name of someone in the News Division, I gave one of the more prominent ones. More to the point, Baier is someone at Fox who does not engage in the sort of crap complained about in the lawsuit. I would consider Baier’s reporting very reliable. If you think otherwise, please explain why? Blueboar (talk) 22:14, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Blueboar, I agree. NPR wrote this:
- I would list Bret Baier as probably the most prominent name in their news division. Blueboar (talk) 13:38, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Did they actually get anyone on the news side fired or did they just talk about it between a few hosts? This is one of the big issues with internal coms like this. Things said in the context of anger/frustration can be presented as carefully laid plans by an opposing party. So far it looks like the news side did what we would want it to do. It reported the facts even though it didn't align with the talk shows. Springee (talk) 20:20, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- They attempted to get her fired calling Suzanne Scott, the network’s chief executive. Instead, the post she made factchecking Trump was deleted. That is they did not report the facts that didn't align with the talk shows. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- The top story on the site right now is Ronny Jackson, a hardcore Trump supporter, alleging a coverup in Biden's health report.[42]] Is that news, or conspiracy theorizing? Anyone ever taken a look at Jackson's twitter feed? Whoo-boy. This is typical of the site. soibangla (talk) 20:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- [43] soibangla (talk) 20:29, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Well, it’s not just the talk shows if the talk show hosts got a news division reporter fired for fact checking their narrative. The current rating for Fox News (politics and science) is “reliability unclear”. Is it really still unclear after all the resignations, revelations, books, etc.? Also, it appears some editors believe the website is the same as the news division. But, it looks more like the talk shows with attacks against one party for years. Last time this came up, I asked for the names of the people considered in the news division and don’t think I got an answer. I can’t find this on Google as I keep getting Hanity, Carlson, etc. Who are the people that are considered green at RS/PS? O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- "Fox News Knew It Was A Lie". Yes. And we knew they knew. That's why they're considered unreliable for politics. Nothing changed here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:20, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- It's interesting how many people claim Fox News is already considered unreliable, full stop, for politics. However, the close of the last RFC found it was marginally reliable and should not be used as a high-quality source for controversial claims. Which is one notch more reliable than generally unreliable. If we think it is generally unreliable, we should write that and reflect that. Andre🚐 21:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Bingo! Sadly, above I asked Blueboar:
- "Is there really no sin bad enough to get Fox News deprecated? ... Tell me where your red line is located in this matter. There seems to literally be no bottom, no red line, that will cause us to ever deprecate them. Please tell me that's not true. Where is your red line?"
- Still no answer. Our policy on how we define a RS should be enough, but it's being ignored when it comes to Fox News. They are Teflon. Sad. I want an answer from Blueboar: "Where is your red line, since deliberate disinformation isn't enough?" -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:03, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don’t actually HAVE a “red line”. I have never liked the concept of “deprecation”, because I strongly believe in judging sources on a citation by citation context. And even the “worst” sources can be reliable in specific contexts… Just as the “best” sources can be unreliable in specific contexts. To judge whether a source is reliable, you need to examine the specific statement we are attempting to verify with that source, and ask whether the source is reliable in that specific context. The more extraordinary the statement, the more extraordinarily reliable the source must be.
- I agree that Fox does not rate as an “extraordinary” source (and even that it is a “poor” source)… and so 100% agree with saying it should not be used for verifying extraordinary claims (and the claims about election fraud in 2020 certainly qualify as extraordinary). But then, that is a criticism I think is true for ALL media outlets. Blueboar (talk) 01:22, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Bingo! Sadly, above I asked Blueboar:
- It's interesting how many people claim Fox News is already considered unreliable, full stop, for politics. However, the close of the last RFC found it was marginally reliable and should not be used as a high-quality source for controversial claims. Which is one notch more reliable than generally unreliable. If we think it is generally unreliable, we should write that and reflect that. Andre🚐 21:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- What this comes down to is that there is a network that calls itself a “news network” watched by hundreds of millions of people worldwide that allows, and apparently pushes, outright falsehoods to be published saying that United States elections are a fraud, Covid restrictions are a fraud, etc. – and we allow it to be used as a source. Folks, drop any biases you may have and remember that this is an encyclopedia. There are so many sources that have proved their ability to correct errors, use multiple sources, gain Pulitzers for exposing problems on both sides of any aisle. Let us use them and not bother with (and give credence to) a corporation whose management allows (at the least) lies and misinformation -- misinformation that dangers democracy and health (among other problems). What do we lose by reducing the rating of a dangerous source when there exist so many that have proved their worth over a very long time? And please, let us stop this claim that all media sources do what Fox does. There is no evidence that anything this dramatic is occurring in what we call RS.. O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:43, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
Here's a Fox "News" story. What's the first thing readers see? A Jesse Watters clip.[44] And in this "news" story? Laura Ingraham[45]. And here's another "news" story entitled "Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action kicks off for thousands of U.S. schools." Sounds reasonable, right? But what do readers see first? A Tucker Carlson clip with guest Candace Owens calling BLM a scam.[46] And here's Paul Gigot and Kim Strassel et al. of the WSJ editorial board in a "news" story.[47]. And Hannity with a "news" story.[48] It just goes on and on. See how they insidiously inject their opinion programming into their "news" site? It's baked in. By contrast, at minimum MSNBC shows in their URLs that their stories are from opinion shows, and typically displays that on the page or notes it's an opinion piece. soibangla (talk) 03:21, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- It is completely inappropriate to consider what the website version delievers, particularly when the labeling of the video is clear it is not related to the story given by the headline. It's why when evaluating reliability we ignore everything like the headline itself, ads, etc - all that matters is the copy of the article text. They are not the only website that forces video on the reader, and while most other websites usually include video of the story that the article talks about, they have other content in that video block carosel (eg: like at CBS News [49]). BTW, Fox News absolutely does delineate opinion from news pieces in terms of what they present at text. There are other sources like the AP that does not do this.
- Remember that every media source is fighting for viewers and drawing readers to their site. Some are more ethical about that, but every bit of trying to grab viewership draw rather than focusing on the news weakens the site's integrity. Masem (t) 03:51, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
It is completely inappropriate to consider what the website version delievers
I don't understand, we're talking about links to the site that some editors want to use as references hereparticularly when the labeling of the video is clear it is not related to the story given by the headline
There is no video labeling. Readers click the story and are presented a video that is ostensibly "the news," but actually it's the view of a mendacious polemicist. Many people (particularly since 54% of American adults cannot read to a 6th grade level) will likely watch the 2-minute clip rather than read the article, and walk away thinking they got "the news." But they haven't, they've been fed partisan opinion. By contrast, when CNN includes a clip in a story, it's from a straight-up newscast that conforms with the more extensive text reporting beneath it.all that matters is the copy of the article text
Oftentimes on its front page CNN shows headlines with a little "play" icon, denoting a video news report with just a short caption, not a text story. If an editor were to write "CNN reported..." would it be impermissible to use that source because it's not text?while most other websites usually include video of the story that the article talks about
I can't think of another news site that uses clips other than a news clip to accompany the article text. Fox News commonly presents opinion clips, without disclosure.AP that does not do this
I'm not aware AP publishes opinion pieces that writers submit, but if they do I suspect those opeds would be clearly labeled as such.Fox News absolutely does delineate opinion from news pieces in terms of what they present at text
As text, perhaps. But not holistically, including their video content, as I've demonstrated, and CNN doesn't do what Fox does, where readers click a story to what might be legitimate news and instead get Tucker Carlson. This is not by accident, it's by design, and if legitimate news outlets also do it, I haven't seen it. It's a devious practice that Fox News uses to insinuate its editorial stance into everything their audience sees on the network, and its site. This might be imperceptible to some who are not paying close attention. soibangla (talk) 16:16, 19 February 2023 (UTC)- The Fox videos have a bolt title and a brief description immediately below the video, impossible to miss. That's the labeling.
- See #opinion pieces published by the AP? for the recent determination that AP offers unlabeled opinion pieces.
- And I stress that we do not focus on the embellishments in the web presentation of a prose story. Videos, ads, pictures, interactive features, etc. Not just for Fox News but for all media website.
- Now I can fully accept the "by design" argument that Fox News wants to push certain content, that's obvious, but every news website is also playing the drawing of eyes to keep viewers on their pages. Maybe not to the same degree as Fox, and not to their opinion pieces, but they do the same thing of trying to distract you from wanting to leave their website. --Masem (t) 16:25, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- What I meant by label was disclosure as opinion, not content summary. There is no disclosure.
- Wow, AP published an oped, I'll be damned. How common is that?
we do not focus on the embellishments
but does that mean the CNN scenario I described is impermissible?- There is a big difference between engagement/retention and systematically insinuating opinions into news. soibangla (talk) 16:47, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- The fact that some Fox News articles also have clips of opinion programming says nothing about the reliability of the underlying article, and as long as we are citing only article content, not the talking head video, then the only reason to complain about the source is moral panic about "what if viewers are exposed to bad opinions?" It's like wanting to deprecate Playboy (which is GREL) because people clicking a link to an interview might see nudity. Sources sources don't even need to be online to be reliable. We could cite a Fox News article without including a convenience link, or a rare undigitized academic library book that happens to be shelved next to a copy of Mein Kampf, without affecting reliability at all. --Animalparty! (talk) 05:05, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Comment I find myself in agreement with Aquillion and Andrevan's concerns. I would not prefer an immediate RfC for total deprecation but we ought to keep a close watch at this news-cycle. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:20, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
Keep in mind that Fox News is still refusing to cover this scandal. We do need an article about it: Fox News "voter fraud" scandal. When this Dominion trial is finished, we can do this better, but there is already enough RS coverage to start the article.
The mark of a RS news agency or other news source is not that they never make mistakes, but that they immediately correct and apologize. Fox News, RIGHT NOW!!!, is refusing to do this. They would lose face too much with their Trump base. They tied their news and opinion sides together with Trump as the only guiding light, and down the rabbit hole the whole Fox News enterprise went. Now they can't admit it publicly to their viewers without it being such a major catastrophe that they fear sinking their own ship. So they are doing what they have always done, hiding the inconvenient facts from their viewers, because Trump has told them that all other sources are fake news. Those viewers will continue thinking that "all this mainstream talk about Fox News hosts thinking Trump was lying about the election" is just fake news.
In the face of all this, Wikipedia still refuses to deprecate or downgrade them, even though, on much flimsier grounds, we deprecated The Daily Mail for far less serious offenses. We should upgrade The Daily Mail (only a tiny bit) and deprecate Fox News. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:10, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Why wouldn't Fox cover this story? They are being sued over the core of this story. One of the things any competent legal team will tell their client before a trial is make no public statements. Covering this content would be exactly that. It would totally ignore the reality of the legal issues to expect Fox to cover claims that they libeled Dominion before the trial. That is akin to saying, "if the suspect is innocent, why doesn't he take the stand and say so?" Springee (talk) 21:22, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Oh snap! Springee, you make a good point. What a pickle, not that they would apologize even if not being sued, but we can't know. What we know is that their listeners will continue to believe what has been reported, and even though Fox will likely not dare continue to repeat "stolen election" lies, they will not be able to correct the record. Fox viewers will continue in their delusional bubble and refuse to believe what all other sources are reporting. What a situation! That guarantees Fox News continues to remain an unreliable source that should be deprecated. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:03, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- The impression I had from the last RFC is that some people who actually agree Fox News is unreliable believe that it helps Wikipedia to appear as less biased to have Fox News be listed as yellow and marginally reliable. Because even though Fox News is generally unreliable for politics and most people proceed as though this is the case in almost every case, they don't want to hear the screams of the drive-by trolls lamenting Fox News' "unfairly" maligned status. Because these people are thinking with their emotions and not with logic, so we can't reason with them. So, we take the tiny tiny sliver of cases where Fox News is reporting on some information that no other source has the very same information, and they extrapolate that to the idea that the reliability of Fox News for politics is unclear, given that occasionally, Fox News does publish accurate and mundane information about politics. When in reality the reliability of Fox News for politics is listed as unclear. It's generally unreliable, a category that prohibits mundane use but there are still plenty of exceptions where use might be allowed. Andre🚐 21:35, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Can you point to any specific examples of that? I don't recall that but I also wasn't really looking for it. Springee (talk) 21:39, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
NPR wrote this:
On Jan. 5, 2021, the day before Congress was to ceremonially affirm Biden's win, and an angry pro-Trump mob sacked the U.S. Capitol to prevent it, Rupert Murdoch forwarded a suggestion to Fox News CEO Scott. He recommended that the Fox prime time stars - Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham - acknowledge Trump's loss. "Would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election was stolen," he wrote. They did not do so. "We need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off the viewers," Scott said to a colleague.[1]
Even Murdoch can't get them to publicly admit their failure. At that time, the "stolen election" conspiracy theory was still in somewhat of its infancy (not really...) but just think of how much Fox News has added to the size of that lie since then? Wow! Now they have added to their complicity so much more. In Japan, these people would have been called into the corporate headquarters, forced to kneel in a row, been handed knives, and committed hara-kiri. Seriously.
Of course, Wikipedia still supports Fox News. We are sending a signal to the world, a really bad signal. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:17, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Wait - We should wait until either the case goes to trial and a ruling is made (in which the facts of the case will be laid out), or until this is widely verified by other RS (preferably some right-leaning ones). Until then, it could be argued that we are doing WP:SYNTH by using deposition testimony and discovery evidence (WP:PRIMARY) to make conclusions. If we let the conclusions be made for us, we're in the clear. All that said, this is bordering on WP:BLUE given that some of the evidence is verbatim text messages and emails. EvergreenFir (talk) 20:22, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- No one is proposing we perform OR or use primary sources. See that long list of what we call "reliable sources" above? We are actually allowed to use them to create content here! What an amazing idea. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:24, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- It is 100% OR because it is only evidence in a ongoing case. No matter how much RSes write about it, it has not been validated under a court of law as being valid and/or truthful.
- Is it likely truthful? Heck yes, but we cannot jump to conclusions like this. Masem (t) 20:33, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Reliable sources are what we're all about, not jury decisions. Sometimes juries convict innocent men. soibangla (talk) 20:44, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- We absolutely do not rely on reliable sources for the determination of legal matters like the Dominion VS lawsuit that this evidence was submitted for. Only the courts can make that determination. Masem (t) 20:48, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Is that codified in PAGs? soibangla (talk) 22:29, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- For BLPs, it is definitely codified at BLPCRIME. "Innocent until proven guilty" should obviously extend to organizations as well. Unless the court decides what guilt is there and if any Fox individuals were complicit in it, we should be very wary of treating evidence provided by one side of the case as factually true, even though we probably all agree it is actually true. That's why we have trials so that the deeper truth can be determined. Perhaps this was all machinations of one person at Fox rather than the organization as a whole. Masem (t) 16:42, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- This isn't about guilt, it's about evidence that has been reported by numerous solid RS. Imagine the consequences for Dominion attorneys if they filed false documents with a court. Disbarment, careers over. soibangla (talk) 16:57, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- The RSes are reporting on the evidence, they have no legal insight to whether the evidence is legit or not or appropriate for the court. Its why, at least in the more prestigious RSes, they state that all these are alleged claims. The RSes are of course coming to their own conclusions as to what it all means, but they have no legal authority here, and we absolutely cannot take their assessment as the legal truth, no matter how many RSes claim it. That's the "innocent until proven guilty" we have to abide by.
- And it is not necessarily that the evidence may be false, but it also may not paint a full picture. For example, wholly separate, when Elon released the "Twitter Files", it was all "evidence" that pointed to Democratic interference, but as has been reported later, there's a fair number of Republican cases that happened as well, so what the Twitter Files was was not the whole story. Similarly, the legal council for Dominion has likely put together a package of files that strongly backs the defamation claims, but Fox may have additional evidence that creates a different picture that may point away from defamation. That type of action by Dominion's lawyers is not a violation of any legal code. (Keep in mind, I strongly believe Fox is guilty of defamation and intentional malice here, but I can't take it as fact until the case is resolved). Masem (t) 17:07, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- The potential legal consequences are irrelevant. The fact the communications have been publicly released and widely reported by RS is all we should be concerned with. Others in the press can speculate on what the legal implications might be, but that's not in our purview. soibangla (talk) 17:13, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Our purview is to be neutral, impartial, and dispassionate. Editing based on "innocent until proven guilty" is absolutely key to this. I know that the evidence is very damning against Fox and suggests more action on RSP should be taken, but that would be violating our neutrality policy to jump on that before the legal matters are resolved. Masem (t) 17:22, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Are you arguing weight for inclusion in the Fox News article or if we should use this information to judge their reliability? If you want to suggest this is DUE in the article then all the coverage basically makes this a slam dunk for inclusion. However, if you are arguing this proves the news desk can't be trusted, then we need to ask why Dominion is releasing this before trial. Ask how does it benefit them to release it if, in theory, the jurors are going to only evaluate what is shown in court? Would Dominion have motive to release things in a way that makes it look worse than it really is? Would they have motive to hold back and exculpatory messages etc? If yes, then we aren't in a hurry. We can see how this plays out. Other than the satisfaction if sticking it to a disliked source, how does this help wikipedia? Springee (talk) 18:38, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- The potential legal consequences are irrelevant. The fact the communications have been publicly released and widely reported by RS is all we should be concerned with. Others in the press can speculate on what the legal implications might be, but that's not in our purview. soibangla (talk) 17:13, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- lolwhat. Trying to apply BLPCRIME here is an incredibly unserious claim - David Gerard (talk) 18:25, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- This isn't about guilt, it's about evidence that has been reported by numerous solid RS. Imagine the consequences for Dominion attorneys if they filed false documents with a court. Disbarment, careers over. soibangla (talk) 16:57, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- For BLPs, it is definitely codified at BLPCRIME. "Innocent until proven guilty" should obviously extend to organizations as well. Unless the court decides what guilt is there and if any Fox individuals were complicit in it, we should be very wary of treating evidence provided by one side of the case as factually true, even though we probably all agree it is actually true. That's why we have trials so that the deeper truth can be determined. Perhaps this was all machinations of one person at Fox rather than the organization as a whole. Masem (t) 16:42, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Is that codified in PAGs? soibangla (talk) 22:29, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- We absolutely do not rely on reliable sources for the determination of legal matters like the Dominion VS lawsuit that this evidence was submitted for. Only the courts can make that determination. Masem (t) 20:48, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Reliable sources are what we're all about, not jury decisions. Sometimes juries convict innocent men. soibangla (talk) 20:44, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- I would say this tangent is embarrassing. Anything about legal cases, guilt, and results are pretty much off-topic here. Lest I be misunderstood, of course BLPCrime is important, but not here. No one is discussing (except for Masem) the case itself or questions of guilt. We are discussing what secondary independent RS say about the revelations coming out about Fox News internal discussions and views demonstrating their deliberate malfeasance and refusal to allow fact-checking their lies. THAT's the topic, so don't muddy the waters. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:42, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- From a legal and logical standpoint, the RSes are only reporting on 1) past events that were visible from outside Fox News and 2) the evidence provided by Dominion's legal counsel to support Dominion's case. They do not have the full picture as they are missing the evidence Fox News will use to defend itself. As such, whatever the RSes are reporting right now is their speculation, definitely not fact that we can state in Wikivoice. It doesn't matter how reliable these sources are, they are not the judicial branch and what claims they make cannot be taken as facts.
- I realize that nearly everything from the past that's been known before this point, and with the evidence given, that there is likely no way that Fox will be found to be complicit in propagating the false narrative and will be liable for the defamation charges they face, and thus my complaint may be prolonging the inevitable facts we can state. But this type of nuance is a core part of NPOV and NOR that we must hold to, despite the weight of evidence that suggests otherwise. This is basically, like, saying that Arbcom took up a case against editor X, where dozens of editors all provide evidence that X is wrong, and pre-stating that X must be guilty before Arbcom actually issues its decision about X. Let's wait to see what the whole picture is based on the legal case, from which we then can evaluate.
- And I stress what has been pointed out before: what does this change about how Fox is already handled on RSP? it's already a highly questionable source for politics (from its news side), and its talk show content already disallowed. Masem (t) 19:34, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
whatever the RSes are reporting right now is their speculation
is incorrect, butthere is likely no way that Fox will be found to be complicit in propagating the false narrative and will be liable for the defamation charges
is speculative. soibangla (talk) 20:22, 20 February 2023 (UTC)- Masem, you again write
"what does this change about how Fox is already handled on RSP?"
It makes a big difference. Right now we have no official deprecation. Instead, we rely on an unofficial ad hoc way of dealing with it, understood only by experienced editors, each time someone wants to use Fox News. The burden is on the editors involved, without them having the recourse of pointing to an official community consensus. The individual editors have to take the full brunt of accusations here at Wikipedia, and outside, for making such decisions. I paid such a price for opposing Breitbart here by having Breitbart feature me as a "Russiagate truther" for believing that Russia did interfere in the elections. What we do here gets noticed. We just know that we cannot trust Fox News when they speak, and we can trust that when they are silent it is usually for political reasons. It is a propaganda organization, not a true news organization, so we should officially classify it as such. Knowing this, yet not acting, is negligence and tacit protection. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:25, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I would say this tangent is embarrassing. Anything about legal cases, guilt, and results are pretty much off-topic here. Lest I be misunderstood, of course BLPCrime is important, but not here. No one is discussing (except for Masem) the case itself or questions of guilt. We are discussing what secondary independent RS say about the revelations coming out about Fox News internal discussions and views demonstrating their deliberate malfeasance and refusal to allow fact-checking their lies. THAT's the topic, so don't muddy the waters. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:42, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- No one is proposing we perform OR or use primary sources. See that long list of what we call "reliable sources" above? We are actually allowed to use them to create content here! What an amazing idea. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:24, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- For those who are digging into this material, ask who released it and why? Who does the release of this material benefit? Was it released with the other side being given a chance to argue about the content? Do we know if the releases were full and complete or selective? One of the very successful strategies the plaintiffs did in the infamous Ford Pinto lawsuit (Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co.) was release a memo which was in reality a response to the government, using government provided numbers and framework trying to assess the cost vs benefit of new rollover protection standards. Since Ford could provide a good estimate on the vehicle cost side of things they were doing that. However, the Grimshaw legal team successfully convinced the public that the memo was proof that Ford didn't care about lives and calculated it was cheaper to pay off the dead vs pay for safety in the cars[50]. It was a totally false narrative but thanks to Mother Jones it stuck. When one side or the other releases a bunch of evidence we need to ask, is it because it helps them make better arguments in court? No, it's because they are hoping to taint the jury pool. Even if we take the evidence at face value all it's doing is verifying what we already have concluded. Springee (talk) 21:31, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Obviously we cannot foresee the result of a trial. So, we cannot say they are guilty of anything. We most certainly can make our own determinizations of the reliability of a source and we can use RS for that purpose without the help of the legal system. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:28, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- For those who are digging into this material, ask who released it and why? Who does the release of this material benefit? Was it released with the other side being given a chance to argue about the content? Do we know if the releases were full and complete or selective? One of the very successful strategies the plaintiffs did in the infamous Ford Pinto lawsuit (Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co.) was release a memo which was in reality a response to the government, using government provided numbers and framework trying to assess the cost vs benefit of new rollover protection standards. Since Ford could provide a good estimate on the vehicle cost side of things they were doing that. However, the Grimshaw legal team successfully convinced the public that the memo was proof that Ford didn't care about lives and calculated it was cheaper to pay off the dead vs pay for safety in the cars[50]. It was a totally false narrative but thanks to Mother Jones it stuck. When one side or the other releases a bunch of evidence we need to ask, is it because it helps them make better arguments in court? No, it's because they are hoping to taint the jury pool. Even if we take the evidence at face value all it's doing is verifying what we already have concluded. Springee (talk) 21:31, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Comment Fox is biased in my mind, but can be used for simple fact verification; airplane xyz crashes on xyz date. Beyond this, they tend to spin a story so it suits a certain narrative. Oaktree b (talk) 02:24, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
When Fox executives referred to their "brand" being damaged (they did it in many ways), they are saying it in the context of "Our brand is WE DELIBERATELY LIE ABOUT ELECTIONS and don't dare stop!" Seriously, read the sources and see what Fox executives said about their "brand" and especially when they said it. You can't make this stuff up. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:43, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- The older editors all see the trajectory FOX is on. The question for you is, and please take your time to think about it, where should this source be categorized as a result? That's what I think was missing from your original post, and that would help some of us see your intent more clearly. Cheers. DN (talk) 03:53, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- DN, as an older editor I have indeed watched this. Before Trump, Fox was just a popular purveyor of normal right-wing stuff, back when the most left-leaning members of the GOP actually straddled the center and had a lot in common with the most right-leaning Democrats. Trump came along and radicalized the whole right, and Fox with it. (see Overton window) Then Fox discovered that Trump, as a fighter, would really boost their ratings if they were loyal to him. That pushed them, and the GOP, into a far-right position and the favored position as nearly the only source trusted by Republicans. We see the consequences of that. Now there are very few Republicans between Trump and the center, and it's a huge gap. The Democrats, OTOH, haven't really moved very much toward the left, at least nothing like the move by the GOP. Many Dems still straddle the center..
- In the light of all the latest revelations, that things are much worse than we realized (they actually deliberately and constantly lied, as a de facto operational policy, to everyone, and punished any employee who resisted or fact-checked), I have already expressed my wish for a formal deprecation. They are arguably worse than The Daily Mail. They fail our standards for a RS. Not only no fact-checking, but refusal to allow it. No correction when their false reporting was constantly criticized. Until they completely crucify Trump and all of his lies, especially his "stolen election" Big Lie, they won't be in the same universe as what we require of a RS. Every day we delay this deprecation is a day we signal to the world that Wikipedia sides with Trump's lies, and editors who resist, risk getting named and excoriated in mainstream articles by the journalists who watch what we are doing here. We are being super inconsistent by extending the common Trump exemption to Fox News. They should not enjoy any form of protected status here. Treat them as we'd do any other source guilty of the same things they are doing. BTW, you are now a Yeoman Editor! -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:35, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Fox News are innocent. Innocent, I tell you! And there's nothing you could say nor do to change my mind! François Robere (talk) 19:33, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Appears to be an illustration of a goodly part of the problem. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:52, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- No need to change anything 1. Court filings are not a matter of law and should not be treated as absolute. 2. It has already been established that specific opinions of some of their hosts such as Carlson, Hannity, etc. are not considered reliable to Wiki. Grahaml35 (talk) 20:16, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
A good summary:
Fox News is in no meaningful sense a news organization. Just for starters, engaging in a journalistic race to the bottom with an outlet like Newsmax—a wall-to-wall dreamscape of MAGA fabulation now fending off its own Dominion defamation suit—is something any remotely legitimate news-gathering operation should automatically lose by definition.[2]
It is not a "legitimate news-gathering operation". --
References
- ^ a b Folkenflik, David (February 16, 2023). "Off the air, Fox News stars blasted the election fraud claims they peddled". NPR. Retrieved February 19, 2023.
- ^ Lehmann, Chris (February 20, 2023). "The Internal Decapitation of Fox News". The Nation. Retrieved February 20, 2023.
Media Bias Fact Check
What is the reliability of Media Bias/Fact Check? The Cite Unseen says its unreliable. An IP editor claims it is credible Special:Diff/1139970652 — DaxServer (t · m · c) 10:06, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- We even have a nice little shortcut for that one: WP:MBFC. :) — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- You could have checked the main article on this website, which points out that it an an "amateur attempt at categorizing media bias". And that the website's owner has stated that "his methods are not rigorously objective." Basically, Media Bias reflects his subjective views. Dimadick (talk) 08:23, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
Unlike the Media Bias Chart by Ad Fontes, they don't have any formal training, a large team, or repeated and careful measurements, analysis, and statistics. That's why it's strange that the Ad Fontes chart isn't rated better. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:46, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- The Ad Fontes chart continues to not be good either. It promotes a false equivalency between MSNBC and CNN, that are generally reliable, versus the mostly unreliable Fox, NY Post, and Daily Mail. Andre🚐 03:56, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Ad Fontes Media is mostly a centrist political organization with its own biases. As pointed in the main article: It "promotes a false equivalency between left and right, lionizes a political 'center' as being without bias, and reinforces harmful perceptions about what constitutes 'news' in our media ecosystem, and is ignored by anyone that doesn't already hold a comparable view of the media landscape." Dimadick (talk) 04:38, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I just had a look at the chart and it separates CNN and FOX into web and TV and on that basis it isn't too bad in is assessment, though I think the latest revelation in the Dominion case indicate FOX should be lower and more to the right. I think the basic problem is that Trump has shifted the middle to the right a bit if you count the middle by just taking averages rather than as any sort of fixed standard. The news media tend to censor or bias a lot of the news anyway so they don't offend their readers or sponsors. NadVolum (talk) 13:30, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
Ratings Ryan
Is Ratings Ryan a reliable source for episode viewership ratings?
I first stumbled across the site while visiting the article South Park (season 1), after realising that the list was making a contradiction about the viewership ratings of the first episode (0.89 million) comparing to the number given by the article on that episode (0.98 million). While the latter cites a book, the list cites this page from the Ratings Ryan blog. This was before I noticed that all the pages from season 1 to season 10 also cited that exact page, affecting the list of South Park episodes (check reference 20 (permalink)). Concerned over the reliability of the blog, I started a discussion on the talk page of the list, pinging the editor that added them (diffs:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10), before searching the blog name in Wikipedia (in quotation marks) and realising that other episode lists cited it too: Futurama; Breaking Bad; Big Brother (1 2); Jimmy Neutron; Yes, Dear; 8 Simple Rules; Monk; Friday Night Lights; Murder, She Wrote and the list goes on (I haven't checked whether this editor added references to the blog in these other lists).
I first considered posting this in MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist, but the fact that this source is being cited in so many pages and the apparent extensive information present in the blog makes me think whether this is a special case (where the blog is reputable or written by a subject-matter expert for instance). However, I can't find any evidence of this. ObserveOwl (talk) 15:20, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Also, there aren't many past Wikipedia discussions mentioning it (1 2). ObserveOwl (talk) 15:24, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Per WP:BLOG and [51], not a WP-good source. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:28, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- Alright. I've started a discussion in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television#Removal of references to a blog to try to remove these citations. Thank you. ObserveOwl (talk) 13:08, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- I do have to ask - I'm not a TV editor, but what would the replacement be? While I would certainly hesitate to use a SPS, my limited understanding is that Nielsen does not publish ratings openly. --Rschen7754 01:23, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
National First Ladies' Library biographies
Link: National First Ladies' Library – First Ladies Research
These online biography pages are used in several articles for United States first ladies, and I've used them a few times myself. It seems to be a legitimate organization, but I've stopped using it lately because I'm having trouble finding information about how the biographies were written. It would be really helpful if a few other editors could weigh in on it. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
- These are tertiary sources, and probably fairly credible (on par with a museum or public library article), but should be used sparingly as citations, and not used as the sole source for any particularly surprising or controversial facts. Simplified tertiary sources like these are very good for evaluating due weight to give various aspects of a biography. Presumably every fact in them can be found in greater detail in academic sources: when possible we should find and cite those instead. --Animalparty! (talk) 01:32, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
Lipstick Lesbian Pride Flag controversy
This sourcing issue affects five articles, Lesbian flags, Pride flag, Biphobia, History of lesbianism in the United States, but has been discussed in most detail on Talk:Lesbian flags.
Back in 2010, a blogger named Natalie McCray designed the Lipstick lesbian pride flag. This flag has had a bit of a controversial reception within the LGBT+ community, some felt the flag was not inclusive of butch lesbians, while others pointed out controversial comments made by the designer on her former blog.
At present, Lesbian flags states that Some lesbians have argued that the lipstick flag is butch-phobic, while others oppose its use due to controversial comments allegedly made by the flag's designer on her blog.
Pride flag and Lipstick lesbian state that However, it has not been widely adopted; some lesbians have not adopted the flag because it is not inclusive of butch lesbians, while others have accused McCray of writing allegedly biphobic, racist, and transphobic comments on her blog.
Biphobia states that some lesbians are against it because McCray’s blog had biphobic (and racist and transphobic) comments, and because it does not include butch lesbians.
And History of lesbianism in the United States states Note that the lipstick lesbian flag has not been widely adopted; some lesbians are against it because it does not include butch lesbians, and because McCray’s blog had biphobic, racist, and transphobic comments.
All variations of the text cite the same sources: a 2015 After Ellen article, and Refinery 29, with the After Ellen cited for the flag's lack of widescale use, and Refinery 29 for the controversial comments by the flag's creator. Of the controversy, Refinery 29 states Some lesbians oppose the use of this flag because McCray's blog includes racist, biphobic, and transphobic comments, and because the pink colours and "lipstick lesbian" terminology don't include butch lesbians.
however three of the articles state this in more uncertain terms.
The discrepancy between the cited source, and the article text was previously raised on the lesbian flag talk page, where several other reliable sources were discussed and excluded because those sources cited sources we consider unreliable (various social media, and Medium blogs). This included exclusion of a 2019 Cosmopolitan article (later updated in 2021), and a Yahoo!Sports rehosting of a June 2021 Women's Health article (which was updated in June 2022).
Two questions. Should the Cosmopolitan and Women's Health articles have been excluded because their ultimate source for information, after traversing through the levels, was a series Tumblr and Medium blog posts? Is the Refinery29 article strong enough that we should be less sceptical in our content across all five articles that include mention of the Lipstick flag? Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:01, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- There are some other sources that would have been pre-emptively excluded on this particular controversial flag
- Nonchalant Magazine, which said
McCray has also been known to write some pretty controversial stuff on her blog, including what others have deemed as racist, transphobic, and biphobic comments.
- Symbolsage which said
Furthermore, designer McCray was said to have posted racist, biphobic, and transphobic comments in her now-deleted blog.
- EqualLOVE which said
Some lesbians also oppose use of any flag revised from the lipstick original because its designer Natalie McCray reportedly wrote racist, biphobic and transphobic comments on a her blog. And some lesbians oppose the use of this flag because the pink colors and “lipstick lesbian” terminology don’t include butch lesbians.
- POP!, a subpublication of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (a Philippine newspaper of record) which said
This design was further forgotten when the creator of this in 2010, Natalie McCray was known to have transphobic and racist ideologies.
- Nonchalant Magazine, which said
- Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:17, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think it's fine for publications to link to social media sources for discussion of something. I don't think it's a reason to exclude reliable sources discussing a topic, particularly when the topic was formed through things involving social media and personal websites. And the sources all seem to concur on the lack of support for the 2010 lipstick lesbian flag within the community both for its exclusion of certain groups and the community's distaste for the creator. There seems to be no alternative views in RS' on this subject. If anything, just saying "Some lesbians" might be too reductive, since the sources appear to indicate a much stronger community repudiation of the flag. SilverserenC 02:24, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- The question seems to miss an essential point and fundamental question about reliable sources. What is the text for which the source being cited as a reference? If I understand the foregoing wall of text, these reliable sources are cited to support the proposition that a "lipstick lesbian" flag was proposed on a blog, that it has not been widely adopted, and some people object to it as insufficiency inclusive. These sources are unquestionably reliable for those propositions. That the sources link to the original blog or to other SPSs is irrelevant, as are allegations of bias about the original blogger. We do not censor or "preemptively" exclude content on Wikipedia because of bias, real or imagined. Banks Irk (talk) 02:28, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- There's three versions of the text, across the five articles, listed in the second paragraph of the "wall of text". Ideally I'd want to unify this into a single version for all five articles, to something like the version that appears on History of lesbianism in the United States and currently reads
some lesbians are against it because it does not include butch lesbians, and because McCray’s blog had biphobic, racist, and transphobic comments.
- However given the pre-existing issues on exclusion of reliable sources, and that the current version of the text in three articles was made more sceptically phrased citing WP:LIBEL (changed here before propagating to other articles) than the source being used to support it, I've not wanted to draft or propose a replacement issue until the sourcing problem has been resolved. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:56, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- There's three versions of the text, across the five articles, listed in the second paragraph of the "wall of text". Ideally I'd want to unify this into a single version for all five articles, to something like the version that appears on History of lesbianism in the United States and currently reads
Smarthistory
This is a somewhat unusual (though I hope not unwarranted) RS thread on Smarthistory (www.smarthistory.org), as the source has not been challenged to the best of my knowledge. Nonetheless, I think it merits its own discussion to offer WP:CONSENSUS precedent moving forward in case doubts appear. It has recently grown into one of the most extensive and accessible sources for art history, architectural history, and global visual cultures; I myself have used this source multiple times in various articles due to its reliability and peer-review process. However, I am also aware that the format and visual layout of the page, along with its admittedly blog-like name, can at first appear unreliable and possibly discourage potential new editors from relying on it as a resource for WP:VISUALARTS. There is already a dearth of high quality art historical content on many global subjects (despite, of course, some excellent GAs and FAs, most of which focus on Western art history). I am looking forward to hearing other editors' thoughts. Thanks so much. Ppt91 (talk) 19:12, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- Looking at their "Our Mission", "Content editors and contributors", and the page on how to contribute an essay, leaves in little doubt that this is a reliable source. They also run a blog site that should probably be handled with a little more care, but would be fine for WP:ABOUTSELF comments. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:24, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
- @ActivelyDisinterested Thanks. That is what I always assumed, which is why I have been on the fence whether to even open this noticeboard thread at all. So, I am happy to see the first vote being unequivocal in its support. Ppt91 (talk) 21:28, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
Techdirt
In editing an article on The Washington Post, I found the website TechDirt used as a source. Upon investigating TechDirt, I found it to be nothing more than a large-scale, multi-user blog.
Quoting from the "About Us" section of the website, it is clear that the website is an opinion blog and not at all a reliable source for information:
"Started in 1997 by Floor64 founder Mike Masnick and then growing into a group blogging effort, the Techdirt blog relies on a proven economic framework to analyze and offer insight into news stories about changes in government policy, technology and legal issues that affect companies' ability to innovate and grow.
The dynamic and interactive community of Techdirt readers often comment on the addictive quality of the content on the site, a feeling supported by the blog’s average of ~1 million visitors per month and more than 1.7 million comments on 74,000+ posts''."
Based upon the fact that TechDirt is a blog, I propose that it be included on the list of Reliable sources/Perennial sources as deprecated. I eagerly await your participation in this discussion. All the best. MarydaleEd (talk) 00:36, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- If it's a blog then WP:BLOG applies and it should be handled as any other self published source, but there's no need to deprecate it. Looking at a few authors/posts I'd say it's generally unreliable, but it could be if the author was otherwise recognised as a subject matter expert. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 02:13, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Functionally, yes, it's a group blog. Mostly Masnick, some other authors including Glyn Moody, who's a respectable freelance journalist. Funding from a pile of venture capitalists. I wouldn't use it for controversial stuff, but you'd need more than "it's a blog!" to swing deprecation - David Gerard (talk) 10:24, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I couldn't be more pleased to have received the input of other editors in considering this source. ActivelyDisinterested is correct in concluding that WP:BLOG applies here. That policy states that "...group blogs...are largely not acceptable as sources." However, I also acknowledge the value in the opinions of David Gerard and Elinruby. My opinion remains that it should be deprecated, but I acknowledge that as a retired journalist and editor of 40+ years, I am a purist where that kind of thing is concerned with more of a "black or white" approach. In the spirit of collaboration and consensus, and based upon the opinions of the editors who have responded, I propose that, instead of labeling TechDirt as "deprecated," that it be included on this list as a "generally unreliable" (WP:GUNREL) source. That label supports all of the opinions posted herein and leaves the door open for use if someone such as a respected journalist posts in the blog. Can we reach a consensus on that? Thank you and all the best. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarydaleEd (talk • contribs)
- Techdirt doesn't meet our sourcing policies, but it is not egregiously bad - certainly no worse than many other blogs that we don't bother to put on the Perennial sources list. It doesn't require any special handing, so I see no reason to single them out in this way. - MrOllie (talk) 02:27, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you, MrOllie. I think TechDirt should be included because it is becoming a well-known blog and even in my small area of influence I hear it referenced as a source of information. ("I read in TechDirt yesterday that blah, blah, blah.) I don't run in particularly tech-heavy circles, which is why I see that website's influence rising. Since I don't know whether you were previously aware of the website, I will take into consideration the other editors (including me) who have responded here, and of the four, two of us know their site. A small number, I grant you, but that is 50 percent. I respect your point of view and am happy to acquiesce if that is the consensus. As for me, I believe we should get in front of such trends instead of lagging behind them. All the best. MarydaleEd (talk) 02:41, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- Techdirt doesn't meet our sourcing policies, but it is not egregiously bad - certainly no worse than many other blogs that we don't bother to put on the Perennial sources list. It doesn't require any special handing, so I see no reason to single them out in this way. - MrOllie (talk) 02:27, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- It is a well known blog, I've read it and I think even cited it at some occasons. Bu yes, it is a blog (a fact I don't think I realized until now). I think I would second what ActivelyDisinterested said. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:27, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
History Channel case-by-case basis
I'd like to suggest that we revisit the History Channel (History.com) notability reliability, to consider it on a case-by-case basis. While I agree that Ancient Aliens and similar shows are not notable, I see no reason why we can't use the "Food that Built America", "Tools that Built America" and "Toys that Built America" and similar programs in this same "that Built America" theme as reliable sources. They've had a history of companies, toys, tools, foods and other items that are part of America's industrial and commercial heritage. Each program seems well-researched, having company representatives, university scholars and other individuals present the history of each item involved. The History Channel comes and goes as far as overall notability reliability is concerned, but I've noticed that they've attempted to get some serious content on the air lately. Oaktree b (talk) 02:19, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- "While I agree that Ancient Aliens and similar shows are not notable" Who says they lack notability? Their reliability is questionable, not their notability. Dimadick (talk) 04:43, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- corrected as above. Oaktree b (talk) 12:24, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Meh… even the “best” programs on the history channel are over-simplified and frequently get basic facts wrong. Sure, they do get a lot right but, before I cited something from them, I would want to double check it by looking at an actual history book… and as long as we are doing that, we might as well cite that history book. Blueboar (talk) 12:59, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Literally everything you can learn through a History Channel program that's worth covering in Wikipedia is better covered through a more reliable source. --Jayron32 14:05, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- That's true, but the fact that a more reliable source exists doesn't make a source unreliable. If it did, we'd never cite a newspaper for any topics covered in an academic book. I'd like for that to be our rule, but it isn't. Levivich (talk) 17:46, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
At best there are better sources, at worst it is junk. No we Should not use it. Slatersteven (talk) 14:10, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- No and just FYI the "_____ that Built America" series are just as unreliable as Ancient Aliens etc. Often they tell the corporate marketing narrative for a product and not the actual history. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:31, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I think it's worth separating the TV shows from History.com. I'm not sure that anything at http://www.history.com/topics or http://www.history.com/news is any more or less reliable than what you'd find in mainstream media, like http://www.cnn.com, but then I've never read an analysis of it. I suspect judging the website articles by the TV shows (Ancient Aliens, Built America, etc.) is inaccurate. Levivich (talk) 17:56, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
Predatory
Is this journal reliable? [52] a few google searches call it predatory. Thanks. Magherbin (talk) 08:02, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
Reliability of Anarchist Federation website as a source for facts on BLP article Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull
Hello. I'm concerned regarding the use of This source on Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull. The source is from anarchistfederation.net
, which self-describes as an automated news aggregator
run by the Online Anarchist Federation. I recently removed content sourced to this website, as it appears to be a self-published press release of an organization with no particular reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Newimpartial decided to restore the source.
I think that the source has no particular reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, but I have been told by Newimpartial that I am clearly not familiar with anarchist doctrines of individual and collective accountability
and that the source carries at least the standing of a blog entry by someone who is known and who has a track record of self-publication on related issues over time
.
Is this a reliable source for content in that BLP article? I'd like to say it's not reliable, but I figure I'd prefer the community weigh in on this specific use case given that this disagreement cannot be swiftly resolved on the article's talk page. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 21:36, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- To be clear, the text sourced to the anarchist SPS is not content about an identifiable living person, nor is it stated in Wikivoice. The text in question reads as follows:
The Bristol chapter of the Anarchist Federation reported that Keen's supporters had called counter-protestors "trannies" and "faggots", had pushed into the counter-protestors, and had grabbed a child and pushed them to the ground. They reported that other attendees included the Industrial Workers of the World, feminist collectives, queer student groups, action medics, legal observers, three different climate groups, anti-fascists, and other leftists.
- This is not sensitive BLP content, and adds detail to discussion of an event that is already included in the article based on independent RS. Newimpartial (talk) 21:43, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- This seems to be contentious content in a BLP, and I really do not think this is the sort of source that should be used for contentious claims anywhere on Wikipedia. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 21:44, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- As noted below, 'anarchistfederation.net' is not the source, the Anarchist Federation (Britain) is. We should not be debating the reliability of the former since it's immaterial.
- Recommendation for best practice: editors should not cite them directly, but cite the original source the organization re-published from, based on how well that meets WP:RS standards, just like any other news aggregator TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:51, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- What part of WP:BLP leads you to interpret this account as "contentious BLP content"? I am perplexed. Newimpartial (talk) 21:51, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Do you not understand how this is contentious material? I'm frankly quite confused here if you don't. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 21:53, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- If you can see a contentious statement in that article text that concerns a specific living person, I'd be very interested to know what that is. Newimpartial (talk) 22:02, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Linking a living person to
Keen's supporters had called counter-protestors "trannies" and "faggots", had pushed into the counter-protestors, and had grabbed a child and pushed them to the ground.
is clearly controversial, and requires strong, secondary sourcing. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:17, 20 February 2023 (UTC)- I really don't understand your argument here. I'm not implying that Keen's supporters are zombies or ultraterrestrials, but WP:BLP doesn't apply to such groups. The event in question is documented in RS here; it isn't something the anarchists simply claim to have bappened. Newimpartial (talk) 22:27, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Linking a living person to
- If you can see a contentious statement in that article text that concerns a specific living person, I'd be very interested to know what that is. Newimpartial (talk) 22:02, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Do you not understand how this is contentious material? I'm frankly quite confused here if you don't. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 21:53, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- The article is about a BLP, if the content is not about the BLP, then it runs against WP: OR and is still a BLP issue. --Kyohyi (talk) 21:50, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- It isn't OR when the relationship between the subject and the event is established in WP:RS, which is true in this case. Newimpartial (talk) 21:53, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Except you have to cite a reliable source this is directly related to the subject of the article. The subject of the article in this case is a living person. So BLP applies to determining whether the source is reliable. Either it's not related and OR, or is related and subject to BLP. --Kyohyi (talk) 22:04, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- This is the source that currently establishes that connection, in the article. Newimpartial (talk) 22:25, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- This seems to be contentious content in a BLP, and I really do not think this is the sort of source that should be used for contentious claims anywhere on Wikipedia. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 21:44, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not reliable Unusually clear case of a source not being reliable, surprised it comes up to discussion. Jeppiz (talk) 21:45, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Are you unfamiliar with WP:USESPS? Newimpartial (talk) 21:55, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I am very well familiar with it. Are you familiar with WP:BLUDGEON? Jeppiz (talk) 22:10, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- No. Newimpartial (talk) 22:24, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I am very well familiar with it. Are you familiar with WP:BLUDGEON? Jeppiz (talk) 22:10, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Are you unfamiliar with WP:USESPS? Newimpartial (talk) 21:55, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- This a non-neutral way to raise the issue and not even relevant.
- For a start, as you note, anarchistfederation.net is a
news aggregator
. They republish material from other publications, so assessing the inclusion of such articles should be based on where it's republished from, not the anarchistfederation itself. - The source in question is the Anarchist Federation (Britain), who protested an event of Keen's, and the material sourced to them is an attributed statement as to 1) how they would characterize Keen/why they're protesting and 2) who were the other groups in attendance/that they collaborated with. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:46, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Then it's a primary, self-published source. Shouldn't be used in a BLP, and even in a non-BLP it wouldn't have any weight without secondary coverage. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:58, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- WP:BLP applies to specific statements about living people, not to BLP articles. I'm tired of seeing experienced editors make that mistake. Newimpartial (talk) 22:01, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- In the very lead of WP:BLP, it says
Wikipedia must get the article right. Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation to a reliable, published source.
I'm really not understanding where the confusion is on your end. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 22:04, 20 February 2023 (UTC)- This isn't
material challenged or likely to be challenged
. This is material you removed on grounds of WP:CRYBLP, although it doesn't require BLP sourcing. Newimpartial (talk) 22:17, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- This isn't
- BLP applies to everything about biographies of living people. Unbalancing an article by using bad sources is most definitely a BLP violation. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:05, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- WP:BLP doesn't require that non-BLP claims be sourced to BLP-compliant sources. I get that balance needs to be based on the balance of coverage in independent, reliable sources, but that isn't the question raised by RTH's filing. Newimpartial (talk) 22:19, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I'm in two minds here. And while I realise BLPN is that way, and that this is overall a discussion on whether or not a source is reliable, given the assertions on BLP I think it important to discuss or at least address this.
- On the one hand I think I can see Newimpartial's point. This particular quotation is about a group of people, which would be excluded from BLP requirements by WP:BLPGROUP, depending on its size and editorial consensus determined on a case-by-case basis. I can also see their point about how the BLP policy applies to all content about living people, and is not specifically tied to biographies. This can be summed up as: any article can contain content about one or more living people without becoming a biography, and biographies about living people can contain non-biographical content.
- On the other, I can also see the points by Red-tailed hawk, ScottishFinnishRadish and Animalparty, the article is unquestionably a biography of a living person and so should by inference and common sense be covered by the BLP policy, as that is the policy that covers content on living people.
- The reason why I'm in two minds is that I can't see an obvious way to reconcile either of these two interpretations of the policy. There does not seem to be any direct or explicit guidance in the text of WP:BLP that covers the applicability of the BLP policy on (potentially) non-BLP content that appears in a biographical article of a living person. Looking at I'm not even sure if we have an essay on how the BLP policy interacts with non-BLP content in a biography. And assuming I'm not missing something obvious or not so obvious in my reading of the policy, and related essays, maybe this is something that we need to discuss in general terms at BLPN?
- However, in general editorial practice, we do generally write our biographies conservatively as there are all sorts of risks whenever we get biographical content wrong. As such I would err on the side of caution and tentatively agree with the points raised by RTH, SFR, and AP that this content can be objected to on good faith BLP grounds. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:58, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- My explanation of the principle was made at the article Talk page:
We are not, for example, forbidden from mentioning when an organization was founded, in an article about an activist or leader in that organization, just because we may have difficulty finding a source that gives SIGCOV to the leader while also mentioning the founding date. Even a SPS could be used for such information.
- [53] Newimpartial (talk) 23:10, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Sure, but the type of content in that example is generally (but not always) less controversial than the content we're discussing here on KJKM's followers at a protest. It's kinda an apples to oranges comparison you're making there I'm afraid. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:29, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- The point of the example is to show the absurdity of "only BLP-compliant sources in BLP articles regardless of the specific content to be sourced". My intention was not to draw a precise parallel to the article text in question. Newimpartial (talk) 23:58, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Sure, but the type of content in that example is generally (but not always) less controversial than the content we're discussing here on KJKM's followers at a protest. It's kinda an apples to oranges comparison you're making there I'm afraid. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:29, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- In the very lead of WP:BLP, it says
- WP:BLP applies to specific statements about living people, not to BLP articles. I'm tired of seeing experienced editors make that mistake. Newimpartial (talk) 22:01, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Then it's a primary, self-published source. Shouldn't be used in a BLP, and even in a non-BLP it wouldn't have any weight without secondary coverage. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:58, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not reliable. This is an extremely questionable source. Where is the evidence AF has a reputation for accurately reporting news, and/or is taken seriously by others (outside of AF)? It is simply self-published, user-generated content. It can't be a self-published subject matter expert, since we don't even know the name of the author. and yes, anarchistfederation.net is a 'news aggregator', in this case they aggregated this article from, guess who, Anarchist Federation (Bristol chapter). It really carries no more weight or reliability than a random guy walking by, taking notes, and posting his experience on Facebook. Doesn't matter if it's true or not, it simply doesn't come from a reliable source. This is how rumors and falsehoods spread. --Animalparty! (talk) 21:53, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- This is the account by an anarchist collective concerning an event its members attended. It doesn't need to be an independent source so long as the content is correctly attributed in arrticle text, which it definitely is. A collective has a track record over time and a reputation at stake as a
random guy walking by, taking notes
does not, so your parallel fails in the respects that matter. Newimpartial (talk) 21:59, 20 February 2023 (UTC)- Please provide the secondary reliable sources that demonstrate that inclusion is WP:DUE. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:08, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- This is the source used in the current article version. Newimpartial (talk) 22:23, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- You're using the source that says
This weekend’s scenes are typical of such events, where physical intimidation and vandalism directed at gender-critical groups are now par for the course.
To shoe-horn in a primary sps painting the article subject in a negative light, rather than summarizing the secondary source? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:38, 20 February 2023 (UTC)- In my view the report from the anarchists adds balance to that one-sided summary. I don't see any reason in policy not to include such accounts, not in Wikivoice, where they do not raise actual BLP concerns. Newimpartial (talk) 22:41, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- That is pure OR, since it's your view, and not that of a secondary source. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:45, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I am not proposing any article content that includes WP:OR or SYNTH. There is nothing wrong with holding my own critical opinions about media sources. Newimpartial (talk) 22:57, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- That is pure OR, since it's your view, and not that of a secondary source. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:45, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- In my view the report from the anarchists adds balance to that one-sided summary. I don't see any reason in policy not to include such accounts, not in Wikivoice, where they do not raise actual BLP concerns. Newimpartial (talk) 22:41, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- You're using the source that says
- This is the source used in the current article version. Newimpartial (talk) 22:23, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Please provide the secondary reliable sources that demonstrate that inclusion is WP:DUE. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:08, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Facebook is a different example than an organization publishing a statement on something it was involved in. I'm not convinced on its reliability either way, but I think the best thing to do is re-scrutinize relevant policy and trawl the archives for past discussions on whether it's acceptable to use an attributed self-published statement from an organization involved in a notable protest. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:02, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- This is the account by an anarchist collective concerning an event its members attended. It doesn't need to be an independent source so long as the content is correctly attributed in arrticle text, which it definitely is. A collective has a track record over time and a reputation at stake as a
- Not a useable source. What we're looking at is a primary (written by a party to the event), self-published, and obviously biased source. This source wouldn't be usable in any article, and certainly falls far below the bar for a BLP. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:04, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- That isn't true, given that RS already document that the event occurred, and given that the anarchist collective can be reliably counted on to give its own view of what happened. WP:USESPS doesn't really speak effectively about collective authorship, but the same reputational factors apply that would in the case of an individual reporting events in the course of many years. Newimpartial (talk) 22:20, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- The secondary source that says
This weekend’s scenes are typical of such events, where physical intimidation and vandalism directed at gender-critical groups are now par for the course.
or a different one? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:41, 20 February 2023 (UTC)- Please see my reply above; I'm trying to minimize BLUDGEON here. Newimpartial (talk) 22:42, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- The secondary source that says
- That isn't true, given that RS already document that the event occurred, and given that the anarchist collective can be reliably counted on to give its own view of what happened. WP:USESPS doesn't really speak effectively about collective authorship, but the same reputational factors apply that would in the case of an individual reporting events in the course of many years. Newimpartial (talk) 22:20, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not reliable for the reasons SFR notes. Also, the notion that
Keen's supporters had called counter-protestors "trannies" and "faggots", had pushed into the counter-protestors, and had grabbed a child and pushed them to the ground
is not contentious BLP content beggars belief. Levivich (talk) 22:11, 20 February 2023 (UTC)- In what sense is this a claim about a living person? Newimpartial (talk) 22:21, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Keen and her supporters are living people. Levivich (talk) 22:25, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- There is no statement there about Keen, and anonymous human beings are not covered by WP:BLP. Newimpartial (talk) 22:29, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- If there is 'no statement about Keen', what is it doing in the Keen biography? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:32, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- The connection of the event to the subject is established in this RS. I get that the level of detail to include about the event can be questioned, but that isn't the question RTH asked. Newimpartial (talk) 22:36, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Maybe stick to what the reliable secondary sources say, rather than not using the secondary source for anything but trying to open the door for bad sourcing. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:43, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don't see any basis in policy for your interpretation; it looks from here like a rationalization you had made before reading either of the relevant sources or the versions of article text concerned. Of course, I may be wrong. Newimpartial (talk) 22:51, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Maybe stick to what the reliable secondary sources say, rather than not using the secondary source for anything but trying to open the door for bad sourcing. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:43, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- The connection of the event to the subject is established in this RS. I get that the level of detail to include about the event can be questioned, but that isn't the question RTH asked. Newimpartial (talk) 22:36, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Andy identifies the weakness in this argument. Tbh, I would support TBANing from BLPs anyone who makes this kind of argument. Seriously, if an editor is arguing that in an article about Keen, a statement about "Keen's supporters" doing horrible things is not a statement about Keen, then the editor lacks the necessary competence to edit sensitive BLP content like this. More likely, the editor is just willing to make an overly-pedantic argument that they know is nonsense in order to win a content dispute, but that also doesn't bode well for editing in sensitive topic areas like this. I urge everybody to get into the spirit of BLP rather than trying to wikilawyer BLP. Same thing about getting into the spirit of WP:RS, and abandon wikilawyering arguments about collective authorship. Levivich (talk) 22:35, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- If your issue is with the characterization of those hurling abuse as "Keen's supporters", I am fine to take that out of the article. What matters to me is describing what happened at the event to the extent we can, given the sourcing. Newimpartial (talk) 22:39, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- The source concerned doesn't meet WP:RS. Not remotely. Not for anything. It cannot be used as a source for 'what happened at the event', in any Wikipedia article, BLP or otherwise. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:44, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- It isn't being used for
what happened at the event
itis describing what happened at the event
according to some (anarchist) participants. It is unquestionably reliable for that. - Levivich, I made this edit to respond to your concern expressed here. Newimpartial (talk) 22:49, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Wikipedia does not base article content on random assertions from unidentified individuals as reported in unreliable sources. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:56, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- You seem to under the misapprehension that anarchist collectives are
unidentified individuals
who makerandom asseertions
. And you sound grumpy about it. Newimpartial (talk) 22:59, 20 February 2023 (UTC)- The only misapprehension here seems to be yours - that you stand the slightest chance of winning this argument through relentless bludgeoning of the discussion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:04, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- That has not been my assumption. Newimpartial (talk) 23:06, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Also, Andy, this retributive revert does not seem healthy and looks like WP:IDONTLIKEIT. It does not concern any contentious material, it removes stable article content, and it does not reflect any consensus about the source. The publisher in question has effective editorial oversight and has been in operation for more than a century - I suggest that you self-revert. Newimpartial (talk) 23:15, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Again, you can't seriously be arguing that this source is a proper RS, especially for BLP content. Levivich (talk) 23:23, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Why not? The publisher has been around for a very long time; it has a good reputation and effective editorial oversight. What do you have against anarchists? Newimpartial (talk) 23:26, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Because https://freedomnews.org.uk/2019/05/18/some-thoughts-on-bristol-university-disciplinary-action-against-trans-student/ is an opinion piece. How did you miss that? Levivich (talk) 23:30, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Well, I didn't think it was, since the portion I restored wasn't opinion coverage. But now I see
Comment
. Interestingly, nobody had raised that issue until now (that I'd seen). It is WP:RSOPINION, and so not usable for facts: you were right for the wrong reason. :p Newimpartial (talk) 23:34, 20 February 2023 (UTC)- When the headline is "Some thoughts on...", that typically indicates an op-ed :-P Levivich (talk) 23:45, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- We're expected to read headlines, now? Merde. I always go right to the publication's masthead, then the article text supporting the arricle content. Oof. Newimpartial (talk) 23:48, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- When the headline is "Some thoughts on...", that typically indicates an op-ed :-P Levivich (talk) 23:45, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Well, I didn't think it was, since the portion I restored wasn't opinion coverage. But now I see
- Because https://freedomnews.org.uk/2019/05/18/some-thoughts-on-bristol-university-disciplinary-action-against-trans-student/ is an opinion piece. How did you miss that? Levivich (talk) 23:30, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Why not? The publisher has been around for a very long time; it has a good reputation and effective editorial oversight. What do you have against anarchists? Newimpartial (talk) 23:26, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Again, you can't seriously be arguing that this source is a proper RS, especially for BLP content. Levivich (talk) 23:23, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- The only misapprehension here seems to be yours - that you stand the slightest chance of winning this argument through relentless bludgeoning of the discussion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:04, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- You seem to under the misapprehension that anarchist collectives are
- Wikipedia does not base article content on random assertions from unidentified individuals as reported in unreliable sources. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:56, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- It isn't being used for
- The source concerned doesn't meet WP:RS. Not remotely. Not for anything. It cannot be used as a source for 'what happened at the event', in any Wikipedia article, BLP or otherwise. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:44, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- If your issue is with the characterization of those hurling abuse as "Keen's supporters", I am fine to take that out of the article. What matters to me is describing what happened at the event to the extent we can, given the sourcing. Newimpartial (talk) 22:39, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- If there is 'no statement about Keen', what is it doing in the Keen biography? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:32, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- There is no statement there about Keen, and anonymous human beings are not covered by WP:BLP. Newimpartial (talk) 22:29, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Keen and her supporters are living people. Levivich (talk) 22:25, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- In what sense is this a claim about a living person? Newimpartial (talk) 22:21, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not even remotely reliable. Frankly, I find it difficult to understand how anyone who has ever read WP:RS should even need to ask. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:26, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Obviously not reliable. About as obvious as it gets—remove on sight. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:43, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- I removed the section from the article in question based on the very clear consensus here that the Anarchist Federation is not a reliable source for anything in the article in question. Jeppiz (talk) 22:53, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
- Unclear The website used in the citation, anarchistfederation.net is an auto-aggregator of "daily news" from multiple worldwide anarchist collectives. They have a tech team who keep the site working, and they don't seem to publish their own content directly. The original non-aggregated source appears to be an article by Anarchist Federation (UK). I do see a basic editorial policy on the AFUK site, which states that
submissions are accepted on a “trust first and correct the mistakes” basis
and which implies that while they don't fact-check prior to publication ("trust first"), they do accept and make corrections ("correct the mistakes"). The only reason why I'm unclear is that I've not seen any editor demonstrate use by others, nor that AFUK have a reputation for accurately reporting UK anarchist related news. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:20, 20 February 2023 (UTC) - Comment Ignoring anarchistfederation.net, which has no reliability as it's just an aggregator, the original source is a self published source. It's AFUK talking about AFUK. The quote from WP:SPS is
Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer.
. The details being reported aren't about the living person, so it can be used but would have to be attributed as it's a primary source. However it's obviously trying to pass guilt by association, and is likely undue in the article about Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull. That though is a discussion for the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 23:56, 20 February 2023 (UTC)- To be clear, all statements made from this source in former article versions were fully attributed to the source. Newimpartial (talk) 00:00, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- Obviously not reliable, especially since the content cited to it is deliberately drawing a deeply negative connection to a BLP. I'm surprised anyone would defend it. JoelleJay (talk) 02:54, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- The final version of text drew no such connection:
The Bristol chapter of the Anarchist Federation reported that demonstrators had called counter-protestors "trannies" and "faggots", had pushed into the counter-protestors, and had grabbed a child and pushed them to the ground. They reported that other attendees included the Industrial Workers of the World, feminist collectives, queer student groups, action medics, legal observers, three different climate groups, anti-fascists, and other leftists.
- That said, no text based on this source is in the article, any longer. Newimpartial (talk) 03:01, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- ...Surely you aren't claiming the BLPVIO is neutralized simply by removing Keen's name from a recap of a demonstration that was tied to her enough to be DUE in her biography? The extent of your idiosyncratic interpretations of P&Gs is becoming deeply troubling. JoelleJay (talk) 03:11, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- The demonstration is tied to her by The New Statesman, as noted above. How is additional information, attributed to the source, giving one group's account of the demonstration a potential BLPVIO? This seems bizarre to me - no source suggests that the clash didn't happen, an independent source says it did, and this non-independent source is used for information that does not characterize the BLP subject in any way. It seems that editors are used to CRYBLPing to discount sources that they don't want to include, even when these sources are used for policy-compliant inclusions. Newimpartial (talk) 03:20, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- So summarizing a Focus on the Family blogpost to describe a drag show performance is totally fine in the performer's bio if it's attributed, right? Come TF on. JoelleJay (talk) 03:59, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- Of course not, but a blog post about anti-drag show demonstrations could certainly be used, with attribution, to add detail to article coverage of such an event. Newimpartial (talk) 04:54, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- What you are arguing is that such a blog post could be used in a BLP, despite it containing material that casts the BLP in a very negative light. This is outrageously non-compliant with policy. JoelleJay (talk) 18:51, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- I don't see how a description of what others did at an event can cast a living person in
a negative light
, unless their actions are attributed to that person in some way. - That said, of course I will respect the consensus that this content be excluded. Since last night, I have just being rebutting WP:CRYBLP arguments that mis-state the P&G. Newimpartial (talk) 19:05, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- Your interpretation of policy is indisputably at odds with consensus.
Keen's supporters had called counter-protestors "trannies" and "faggots", had pushed into the counter-protestors, and had grabbed a child and pushed them to the ground
absolutely falls underbiographical material that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced or poorly sourced
. How is a description of demonstrators' behaviors at a Keen rally DUE here if it's not intended to provide context on Keen? Do you believe readers get a neutral or positive impression of Keen from that statement? If not, how can you claim it isn'tmaterial challenged or likely to be challenged
, or that it doesn't have thepossibility of harm
? Policy says tobeware of claims that rely on guilt by association
and states"See also" links...should not be used to imply any contentious labeling, association, or claim regarding a living person
; the above content is exactly the type of insinuation addressed here and unless an editor has severe competence issues it should be clear implications of contentious association are not acceptable elsewhere in the article either. The same goes for the use of shitty sources in BLPs in general: ifQuestionable or self-published sources should not be included in the "Further reading" or "External links" sections of BLPs
, where they obviously are not attached to info directly covering the subject, why would they be acceptable when cited inline? JoelleJay (talk) 20:12, 21 February 2023 (UTC)- The above content isn't what I reverted in after the BLP issue was raised; it was this text, and no, I don't see any possibility of harm to a BLP subject. The passage in question is an attributed account by a reputable organization that neither casts insinuations about the BLP subject nor was its relevance to the article questioned by any editor at the time it was discussed. The objection to the adjusted passage was purely to the sourcing, by an editor who was misapplying the requirements of BLP to material that is not
contentious material about a living person
. Newimpartial (talk) 20:57, 21 February 2023 (UTC)- That content is in the diff you link. Your stunning inability to recognize that that passage is
biographical material that is entirely negative in tone and ... poorly sourced
is grounds for a CIR/TENDENTIOUS block. JoelleJay (talk) 01:30, 22 February 2023 (UTC)- Sorry; I was attempting a two-edit diff and failed. I removed the objectionable bit once I understood the objection minutes later. [User:Newimpartial|Newimpartial]] (talk) 01:43, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
- That content is in the diff you link. Your stunning inability to recognize that that passage is
- The above content isn't what I reverted in after the BLP issue was raised; it was this text, and no, I don't see any possibility of harm to a BLP subject. The passage in question is an attributed account by a reputable organization that neither casts insinuations about the BLP subject nor was its relevance to the article questioned by any editor at the time it was discussed. The objection to the adjusted passage was purely to the sourcing, by an editor who was misapplying the requirements of BLP to material that is not
- Your interpretation of policy is indisputably at odds with consensus.
- I don't see how a description of what others did at an event can cast a living person in
- What you are arguing is that such a blog post could be used in a BLP, despite it containing material that casts the BLP in a very negative light. This is outrageously non-compliant with policy. JoelleJay (talk) 18:51, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- Of course not, but a blog post about anti-drag show demonstrations could certainly be used, with attribution, to add detail to article coverage of such an event. Newimpartial (talk) 04:54, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- You are still bludgeoning. It may be wise to drop the stick. It seems you are willfully ignoring the WP:PAG against sources you want to include. You want to add/retain the primary source accounts of an organization with no established reputation for fact-checking, accuracy, or editorial discretion, seemingly merely because they were there and happened to have blogged about it, and you presume that the anarchists who attended are inherently reliable and/or significant. A self-published primary account carries virtually zero weight, especially when it's not a recognized journalistic outlet. It doesn't matter much what they said: a self-published account saying "everybody had a grand time and ate strawberry ice cream" would carry equally negligible significance. WP:NPOV is based not on listing what every conceivable source has published, but in conservatively summarizing what reliable sources have said, in proportion to the prominence of these views. You've not provided any evidence that the AF source is reliable or has been given weight by secondary sources, nor that it is a WP:RSOPINION, merely asserted (repeatedly!) that their content should be added. To give undue wight to unreliable/minority views is not what an encyclopedia is for. The only case I could possibly see using this source (with due caution) is a hypothetical article about the Bristol chapter of the Anarchist Federation to document non-contentious statements about itself (not other people or groups) per WP:SELFSOURCE. If you wish to write an original composition outside of Wikipedia, elevating unheard voices and primary sources that you think deserve more focus, then by all means pen an article for Anarchist Studies or your local newspaper, but Wikipedia is not the place to do that. --Animalparty! (talk) 04:45, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- As I noted on the Talk page, I believe you are not paying attention to the relevant questions, which are (1) does the text referencing this Anarchist source contain contentious material about a living person? (it does not), and (2) are the statements of this particular anarchist group reputed to be good sources for the events they attend? (I believe they are). This isn't an RSOPINION, but it would have been sheerest optimism on my part to expect you to confine yourself to WP:PAG that are actually relevant to the case under discussion. Newimpartial (talk) 04:52, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- 1) Even if this wasn't a BLP, the self-published primary accounts (WP:PRIMARY), have not been demonstrated to be significant views, e.g. mentioned by other sources. 2) You believe they are. That's fine! It doesn't mean they warrant mention. If I find an unpublished diary by a World War I soldier, or a published newspaper letter by a spouse of a soldier, that might be very interesting to add to tack onto some article on a WWI battle, but it's still a primary source, and primary sources need to be used with care, if at all. --Animalparty! (talk) 05:02, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- One of the legitimate uses of non-independent sources is to add additional perspectives on events whose inclusion is justified by independent RS accounts. We can use such sources, for example, to give founders' perspectives on when and why a group was established, without of course endorsing their view in Wikivoice. Your claim that such sources never are and never should be used in enwiki is prima facie absurd. Newimpartial (talk) 05:08, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Newimpartial: Three editors above have cautioned you about bludgeoning this discussion, and I would kindly ask you to please stop bludgeoning by volume and sheer repetition as well. The arbitration committee notes that
Bludgeoning exhausts other editors, dissuades further participation, wastes time, and makes discussions less effective. Editors should avoid repeating the same point or making so many comments that they dominate the discussion
. In this discussion, you have made no fewer than thirty-five comments, many of which have been extremely repetitive to previous points. Please stop bludgeoning the discussion. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 05:19, 21 February 2023 (UTC)- I find it ironic that you make this comment in a thread of back and forth where I have said less and repeated less than my interlocutor, but I respect your viewpoint. Newimpartial (talk) 05:23, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- @Newimpartial: Three editors above have cautioned you about bludgeoning this discussion, and I would kindly ask you to please stop bludgeoning by volume and sheer repetition as well. The arbitration committee notes that
- One of the legitimate uses of non-independent sources is to add additional perspectives on events whose inclusion is justified by independent RS accounts. We can use such sources, for example, to give founders' perspectives on when and why a group was established, without of course endorsing their view in Wikivoice. Your claim that such sources never are and never should be used in enwiki is prima facie absurd. Newimpartial (talk) 05:08, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- 1) Even if this wasn't a BLP, the self-published primary accounts (WP:PRIMARY), have not been demonstrated to be significant views, e.g. mentioned by other sources. 2) You believe they are. That's fine! It doesn't mean they warrant mention. If I find an unpublished diary by a World War I soldier, or a published newspaper letter by a spouse of a soldier, that might be very interesting to add to tack onto some article on a WWI battle, but it's still a primary source, and primary sources need to be used with care, if at all. --Animalparty! (talk) 05:02, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- As I noted on the Talk page, I believe you are not paying attention to the relevant questions, which are (1) does the text referencing this Anarchist source contain contentious material about a living person? (it does not), and (2) are the statements of this particular anarchist group reputed to be good sources for the events they attend? (I believe they are). This isn't an RSOPINION, but it would have been sheerest optimism on my part to expect you to confine yourself to WP:PAG that are actually relevant to the case under discussion. Newimpartial (talk) 04:52, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- So summarizing a Focus on the Family blogpost to describe a drag show performance is totally fine in the performer's bio if it's attributed, right? Come TF on. JoelleJay (talk) 03:59, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- The demonstration is tied to her by The New Statesman, as noted above. How is additional information, attributed to the source, giving one group's account of the demonstration a potential BLPVIO? This seems bizarre to me - no source suggests that the clash didn't happen, an independent source says it did, and this non-independent source is used for information that does not characterize the BLP subject in any way. It seems that editors are used to CRYBLPing to discount sources that they don't want to include, even when these sources are used for policy-compliant inclusions. Newimpartial (talk) 03:20, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- ...Surely you aren't claiming the BLPVIO is neutralized simply by removing Keen's name from a recap of a demonstration that was tied to her enough to be DUE in her biography? The extent of your idiosyncratic interpretations of P&Gs is becoming deeply troubling. JoelleJay (talk) 03:11, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- Reliable solely as an attributed notable SPS Which is what it appears to be used as in the section already. I would change "reported" to "claimed", as it is a claim being made by the group in question of what occurred at the event. But they are a notable group whose opinion seems fine to include for an event that already has other reliable secondary coverage as an event that occurred regarding the BLP subject. SilverserenC 03:51, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- No, we can't use an WP:SPS to describe what occurred at the event, because that would be using an SPS for claims about a third-party. This is WP:SPS and WP:BLP 101, and like many other editors, I'm starting to get very alarmed by what some editors in this topic area have been writing when it comes to interpreting our very clear, very well established policies about this sort of thing. A "notable group's opinion" is not "fine to include for an event" when the "event" consists of other people's actions. Levivich (talk) 16:03, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- So you are saying that WP cant give an attributed statement by the Anarchists mentioning the other groups that accompanied them at the counter-demonstration, because they are referring to people other than themselves? I don’t believe that to be what WP:SPS means by
claims about third parties
. If someone says, "I'm suing Elon Musk" on a blog, I think we can say "so-and-so said they were suing Elon Musk" using the SPS. Newimpartial (talk) 16:14, 21 February 2023 (UTC)- "I'm suing Elon Musk" is an WP:ABOUTSELF statement. "[Other person] is suing Elon Musk" can't be cited to an SPS. "[Other people] [did things at a demonstration]" can't be cited to an SPS. Levivich (talk) 16:40, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- That wasn't the part of the sourced content to which I referred. It was the "we were there with ABC"-type content. Newimpartial (talk) 16:46, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- For the record, I think "I saw my friend across the room" or even "I spoke to my friends" are covered by ABOUTSELF, though clearly I may be in the minority on that. Newimpartial (talk) 16:48, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- "I'm suing Elon Musk" is an WP:ABOUTSELF statement. "[Other person] is suing Elon Musk" can't be cited to an SPS. "[Other people] [did things at a demonstration]" can't be cited to an SPS. Levivich (talk) 16:40, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- So you are saying that WP cant give an attributed statement by the Anarchists mentioning the other groups that accompanied them at the counter-demonstration, because they are referring to people other than themselves? I don’t believe that to be what WP:SPS means by
- No, we can't use an WP:SPS to describe what occurred at the event, because that would be using an SPS for claims about a third-party. This is WP:SPS and WP:BLP 101, and like many other editors, I'm starting to get very alarmed by what some editors in this topic area have been writing when it comes to interpreting our very clear, very well established policies about this sort of thing. A "notable group's opinion" is not "fine to include for an event" when the "event" consists of other people's actions. Levivich (talk) 16:03, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not reliable Nothing at Wikipedia should be cited to such sources. --Jayron32 13:09, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- The question is whether to include material from an activist organization in a biography. It's about WP:DUE more than RS, and the default answer is no, especially if it's a controversial claim and especially if it's a BLP issue (the idea that it's not a BLP concern to include claims about what their supporters did in a biography about the person is very unconvincing). There are exceptions for certain high-profile organizations whose opinions routinely receive coverage by the press, but even then it's helpful to see the extent to which reliable sources cover the claim being made. It's there that the reliability of the site in the header is relevant: does it lend weight to the claim's inclusion. I don't think it does -- at least not sufficiently. Find some other sources which cite the claim or make a similar claim and there's a better case for weight. Regardless, as others have pointed out already, this is a NPOV issue first and RS question second. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:35, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- I agree, and want to note some additional considerations
- While AFUK was verifiably present, only WP:DAILYMAIL and WP:BREITBART explicitly noted that, and are not WP:RS. Had RS explicitly named them as being present, there would be more of a debate over WP:DUE, and if reliable sources had explicitly mentioned their statement, there would be a much stronger case for it being DUE (though hopefully, the RS would have noted their statement themselves so we didn't need to turn to the primary source).
- But as it stands, sadly the RS don't lend weight to its inclusion and it is WP:UNDUE in the article. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:57, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- Not reliable Unreliable news aggregators, nor self-published material, should be used freely about living persons in an article. If the content is fit for inclusion, find the reliable secondary source. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 19:02, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- This is a political advocacy group, that gives a disclaimer that it doesn't do up-front fact checking, making self-serving claims, to go in the biography of a living person they regard as their enemy. It does not get less reliable than that. It concerns me that experienced editors would even entertain the idea of using this, much less writing apologia for it.
- Sennalen (talk) 20:21, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- For the record, I have filed a report at WP:ANI given Newimpartial's extreme bludgeoning here (more than 40 different comments in 24 hours) and WP:COMPETENCE concerns raised regarding their pushing of such an obviously unsuitable source. Anyone can make mistakes, but doubbling down on one's mistake over 40 times is too much. Jeppiz (talk) 21:57, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
Is unrevealedfiles.com an RS for astronomy?
Specifically [54] as used in Heliocentrism#Rishi Yajnavalkya. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 16:37, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- Definitely not an RS, it's a one-person blog, and thus WP:SPS, and not an expert SPS. Levivich (talk) 16:44, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- That’s also my opinion. I’ll revert. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 19:07, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
Is Collider.com a credible source?
I am wondering BananaBreadPie12 (talk) 19:51, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- It appears to clear a minimum hurdle, but reliability is always in a context that includes publication, author, and claim. Sennalen (talk) 20:06, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
- BananaBreadPie12: It has an editorial team and editorial policies, and it appears to be a well-respected entertainment news outlet. You should be fine using it to source things about entertainment. With that said, it might not be good enough for the sentence you added to Shrek 2. The Collider article is just the opinion of one writer, and it doesn't prove that anything is "widely regarded" or that "many people" think something. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)